Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’re going to marry the prince of Karasuno,” Kenma’s father told him on the first day of midsummer.

He had summoned Kenma to his rooms far too early, before the pink of dawn had even broken over the eastern mountains. Kenma didn’t have lessons or fencing practice until midday, and under usual circumstances he would have been able to sleep much longer.

King Kozume Takeshi did not so much as look up from the letter he was writing at his desk as he spoke. His manner suggested he was advising that the evening meal would be held fifteen minutes late; the life-altering statement was that matter-of-fact, and carried the same expectation that he would not be questioned.

“Very well,” Kenma said, when the skritching of the quill stopped pointedly and he realized that some sort of answer was expected of him. He blinked. “Is that all?”

*****

The captain of the guard was waiting leaned up against one of the pillars outside when Kenma emerged from the king’s study, just as Kenma had known he would but hoped he wouldn’t be.

Kuroo was in training leathers, his hair hopelessly ruffled up and unruly in the way it always was when he had removed his helmet too carelessly. He must have come right from morning exercises.

“I see you’ve abandoned your post,” Kenma said, unsurprised. “Don’t let Nekomata see you.”

He pulled the doors to his father’s suites shut tight behind him.

When Lev was younger, he had been awfully afraid of the dark. He would cry every night unless someone came in to close each window and door in his room to make sure it was safe while he watched from the bed, green eyes huge and mouth crumpled up.

Kenma felt rather like that now, closing the door to the study. As if, with it shut, the news he’d just been given might be locked up safely inside.

Kuroo grinned in response to Kenma’s greeting, very like someone who knew full well that he was Nekomata’s favorite and that if he were in fact to be caught shirking his captainly duties, the old swordmaster would do nothing more than grumble and tell him sternly not to do it again.

“No danger of that,” Kuroo said, falling into step beside Kenma. “He’s far too busy this morning poking Lev with his walking stick because he still can’t remember his footwork.”

“Has he tried doing it with a sword? It might inspire some effort.”

Kuroo made an amused sound in agreement as they crossed the courtyard. It was mercifully cool out, the only time it would be all day now that the heat of summer was threatening. This close to the gardens, the air smelled of jasmine and roses.

Nekoma was always temperate, not so insufferably hot as Fukurodani to the south but lacking the rainy season they had down in Shiratorizawa, or the freezing winters up in the Dateko mountains. In the colder seasons it was a blessing. In the warmer months, it could be intolerable.

Kuroo nudged Kenma’s shoulder with his own to draw his attention back. “Anything to tell me?” he asked, gold eyes intent. His demeanor, though, was nonchalant -- quite as if he had not been waiting outside with the express purpose of being told something.

“Not that I can think of,” Kenma said, tone bland. “Shouldn’t you be running through the new formations with the others?”

“Already done,” Kuroo said, and smiled. It was not one of his nicer smiles. “Twice.”

Their boots crunched on the path. The sky was the flat grey before dawn, the stars barely perceptible as their brightness faded against the coming daylight.

Kuroo would have already been awake for hours, monitoring the changing over of the night guard and the soldiers’ morning exercises. Nekomata had used to oversee everything back before Kuroo was named captain, but now he delighted in sleeping well into each morning and then showing up later to berate the knights for their poor posture and lazy blocks.

Kenma wondered if it would be worth it to sneak out to the orchard before breakfast in order to avoid having to work on swordsmanship with Nekomata in the afternoon. It would mean missing a meal, but he did that often, and he could probably convince Lev to bring him a tart or some apples out later.

The crown prince could be convinced to do almost anything. It was his best, worst, and largely only, quality.

“Kenma.”

Kuroo lost patience at last, as Kenma had known he would, and did an abrupt about-face to stop in front of Kenma, setting them toe to toe.

Kuroo’s movements were as familiar to Kenma as his own, besides which he was being extremely predictable. Accordingly, Kenma was able to stop in time to prevent a collision, tipping his head back to look up at Kuroo with raised eyebrows.

“What?” he asked neutrally, because Kuroo was annoying him and he saw absolutely no reason to help him do so.

Kuroo heaved the familiar sigh that meant he thought Kenma was being difficult. “You’re betrothed.”

And there it was, removed from the quiet, enclosed space of his father’s study. Kenma tried not to wince at hearing it. It was only a word. One which sounded no more real, no less removed, in the grey almost-daylight. It was hard to believe it had the power to change anything.

Kuroo folded his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heel so that, having achieved his aim, he was no longer occupying quite so much of Kenma’s space.

“Were you not going to tell me?” he asked.

He actually had the gall to look wounded. Kenma refused to humor him. He felt very tired, suddenly, the reality of being woken before dawn settling in on him.

He had stayed up too late reading a compilation of southern faerie lore at his desk and had fallen asleep on the open book at an uncomfortable angle, fully dressed. He had still been there when one of his father’s pages rapped on the door a quarter of an hour ago to wake him.

“Why would I?” he asked flatly. “It was clear you already knew, and I expected you would bring it up sooner rather than later.”

He didn’t ask how Kuroo knew about the betrothal, because he always knew things before he was meant to. He couldn’t have known prior to this morning, though, or he would have told Kenma first. He would not have been allowed to, but he would have anyway. He told Kenma everything.

“And you have no thoughts on the matter whatsoever?” Kuroo asked. He raised his eyebrows. “Marriage? Even for you, I find the lack of a reaction surprising.”

Most everyone had to work hard to avoid rising to the deliberately goading tone Kuroo was using now. It was no longer difficult for Kenma, who had known him as long as he’d known anything.

“I don’t see why it matters what I think,” Kenma said, frowning and dismissing the word marriage as quickly as he’d put aside betrothed, because thinking about either for too long made discomfort press against his ribcage like suffocating.

He gave Kuroo a skeptical look to cover it. “This is what was so urgent you needed to leave training early and risk the others happening upon a spontaneous crisis without your constant supervision? My thoughts on marriage?”

Kuroo’s expression suggested that Kenma had not covered particularly well. “I was thinking more the specific instance than the general concept.”

Kenma did not respond to that, because he was busy considering which was the best way to remove himself from the palace before anyone who might force him to be somewhere else awoke and thought to look for him.

The north gate would be best, if possible. The morning guard stationed there always left his post early to go gaze longingly at the blonde serving girl in the kitchens and ask her if she needed help sifting flour or chopping potatoes. Her disinterest was so clear that Kenma was embarrassed for him.

Kuroo didn’t move out of his path, though, and Kenma could feel the intensity of his gaze even without looking back at him.

Kuroo was the captain of Nekoma’s royal guard, but that was second. First, he was Kenma’s closest friend, and had been since they were children.

He could read Kenma’s mood better than anyone, and for him to be pressing the issue despite Kenma’s clear desire to avoid it meant he had a reason for doing so. It meant he thought it was for Kenma’s own good, whether or not he was right.

With a great deal of reluctance, Kenma stopped planning his path of escape and let his thoughts return to the brief conversation with his father. He focused only on the edges of the thing, like running fingers over the faint rises of a coin buried in sand. In an abstract sense, the situation was not so unthinkable.

Marriage had been a foregone conclusion since he was born, of course, even after he wasn’t the crown prince anymore.

His father had remarried when Kenma was only two years old, and the fair-haired former princess of Izhevsk and new queen of Nekoma came to live with them from across the Ishikari Sea. Lev had been born before the year was out, and under their laws of inheritance Kenma was moved to second in the line of succession.

It had been a relief, once he was old enough to realize. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight of the crown.

But even then Kenma hadn’t been so naive as to think he had escaped the necessity of marrying for politics, and he had turned eighteen in fall. He was really only surprised it had taken this long.

“It won’t make much difference, I suppose,” he said, after a few seconds’ consideration. He stepped to one side, around Kuroo, and began walking again. “I’ve known this would happen since I was very young, and I’ve known it would be Kageyama Tobio for some time, so it’s not as if it’s a complete surprise.”

Kuroo’s brows lifted. He fell into step beside him again. “You’ve known it would be the Karasuno prince?” he asked after a moment. “How?”

“It’s very obvious,” Kenma said. He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and tripped over the cracked stone in the walkway. Kuroo caught his arm and kept him upright without breaking stride. “Oh?” he asked expectantly.

He was successfully working Kenma’s nerves now, and judging by his expression he knew it.

“They’re our most valuable new trade partner, which is more or less a miracle given all that has happened between us, and that’s an alliance my father would like to secure,” Kenma said shortly.

Kuroo had sat through all the same lessons as he had. He knew their shared history as well as Kenma did, and certainly did not need it explained to him.

Karasuno was a formidable power in the past. They had not been in some time, but from what Kenma had heard across the mountains in recent months, that had changed.

They had rebuilt their main city and fought tooth and nail for half a year to reclaim the old borders Seijoh had pushed back in the years following the war with Nekoma, when Karasuno was weak.

“Moreover, with things with Shiratorizawa so uncertain, the more allies we have, the better,” Kenma went on. It was easy to think like his father, if he tried.

Shiratorizawa, down to the south, had been inexorably inching their territory north with terrifying steadiness for almost a year. Like spilled ink spreading across parchment.

It was only recently that King Ushijima’s forays had reached the lower boundaries of Seijoh and Fukurodani, and had been met with real resistance. He had pulled back most of his forces, but the silence on the southern front felt like the calm before a storm.

Kenma set that aside and thought back, remembering the two women who had showed up with the first snow on the mountains, one dark haired and one light, bearing the crows’ royal seal. “Besides that, Karasuno’s ambassadors stayed with us for nearly a month this past winter,” he said. “I assumed it was to draw up a contract, and I was right.”

“So you don’t mind?” Kuroo asked. Kenma shrugged, because not minding was not at all the correct summation of the matter and yet was perhaps as close as they might come.

“Are you happy about it?”

What a strange question. Kenma wrinkled his nose. “No,” he said, honestly. He had no desire to be married, and less so to someone he had never met.

He also could not think of a single thing less relevant to ask, about something he had no more power over than the pull of the tides or the changing weather.

They had reached the north gate at last, and it was, as he had expected, unguarded. The first light was paling over the mountaintops, and more sounds could be heard from the kitchens, the main hall, the stables, as the palace woke up around them.

Kuroo let his hand fall from its guiding hold on Kenma’s sleeve. His expression was strangely intense, at odds with the lightness of his tone. He asked more quietly, “Are you unhappy about it?”

Kenma sighed and folded his arms. Of course Kuroo, who felt responsible for everyone and could never leave well enough alone, would be worried about something as irrelevant as that. “You might have just asked that in the first place, instead of bothering me halfway across the palace.”

“Are you?” Kuroo pressed.

“Not particularly,” Kenma said, looking away first the way he always did. He sounded as deliberately uninterested as possible, knowing that Kuroo would latch onto any audible reaction. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “Why all the questions? We’ve known this would happen for years.”

Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something flicker across Kuroo’s face, there and gone too quickly for even Kenma to read. Then his mouth curved up into its familiar unconcerned smile. “I suppose we have,” he said.

Just like that, the mood shifted and lightened. Kenma hadn’t realized until that precise moment how heavy it had grown over the course of the conversation, and looking back could not put a pin in why, or where exactly it had happened.

Kuroo gestured towards the open gate, shaking his head. “Go on then, go while you have the chance. I’ll come and collect you for sparring later.”

Kenma thought, for a moment, of asking him what he had been thinking about before. But that risked opening the door he had only just succeeded in forcing shut again, and so he only said, “Don’t,” darkly, in response to Kuroo’s threat.

“I will,” Kuroo said, beaming.

“You’ll regret this when I have run off to Dateko to start a new life,” Kenma said, and Kuroo hummed and said, “Not as much as you will, you do remember that Kenji lives there? Now, don’t glare at me, Kenma, it’s not my fault your plan isn’t any good.”

Kenma made a very rude hand gesture in answer.

He could still hear Kuroo’s laugh, loud and raucous, even once he was outside the gate and heading up the hill to the orchard.

Chapter Text

Prince Tobio arrived one month later, at the start of the harvest season.

When Kenma first set eyes on him he was wearing a jeweled crown, velvets in Karasuno’s midnight and copper, and a thunderous expression that did not alter in the slightest throughout formal introductions, a tour of the palace, and all four hours of an elaborate six-course dinner.

Initially Kenma thought Kageyama Tobio’s ire must be directed at him, as a show of displeasure towards the arranged betrothal. It was far from ideal, but it wasn’t as if Kenma could particularly blame him, either.

For Karasuno to send an envoy to Nekoma at all, given their history, was a great show of faith. For them to send their only prince was -- as Kenma had said to Kuroo only weeks before -- nothing short of a miracle.

If Kenma read the gesture right, and he almost always did, it was part formal display of trust, part public challenge.

All of the Seven Kingdoms would know that Karasuno put enough stock in Nekoma’s word of honor to ride into the heart of their royal city with only a handful of men.

And the Seven Kingdoms would also know that, regardless of Nekoma’s honor, Karasuno was bold enough or mad enough to do it.

Their alliance was a new one, and still fragile in some places. Karasuno and Nekoma had not been in partnership in over a decade, ever since a land dispute had caused their last treaty to dissolve into bloodshed that lasted nearly a year, and a mutual hostility that had endured much longer.

Two years ago, in lieu of a direct successor after the old king’s death, Karasuno’s throne had passed to a steward. Takeda Ittetsu had been the one to reach out to Nekoma again, after three years of silence. He had sent out a messenger to propose a meeting, and Kenma’s father -- pushed in no small part by Nekomata -- had accepted.

Following months of arguing back and forth and more meticulously drawn and redrawn documents than anyone could count, a new treaty had been agreed upon. Both sides had opened the blockaded trade routes back up and horses began making the journey through the Dateko mountains again, transporting spices and silver to the east and salt and lumber to the west.

And things continued to change. As of this year, Karasuno had a king again.

The old king’s son was dead. His grandson hadn’t wanted the throne, and had preferred to leave the kingdom entirely to live in obscurity when he died.

Only this winter had the younger Ukai returned from wherever he’d been with no warning or explanation and taken up in his grandfather’s stead as if he’d never been gone, much to everyone’s shock.

Kenma had been surprised by it too -- certainly he could relate to the desire to be free of the crown and everything that came with it, and wanted to know what could possibly have changed the new king’s mind -- until he had met King Ukai the Second last summer at a royal wedding in Dateko’s central city.

He had met him, and he had seen how he looked at the former steward of Karasuno, who stood blushing at his side.

Love, Kenma had long since realized, made people do all manner of unexplainable things.

Although relations were amiable again between Nekoma and Karasuno now, that did not wipe clean their shared history. It was not unlikely that Tobio, and most of the knights who had traveled here with him, had had family in the fighting. It was not unlikely that they had lost them.

As the evening wore on, though, and he had the opportunity to observe his intended more closely, Kenma realized quite quickly that that was just how Kageyama Tobio was. His black mood didn’t seem to have anything in particular to do with Kenma, or Nekoma for that matter, in the slightest.

Prince Tobio looked just as forbidding while enjoying a second helping of pudding as he did when he was asked whether Karasuno’s weather was favorable this time of year.

He wasn’t Karasuno born, like most of the others were, Kenma knew. He was a prince of Kitagawa, and rightful heir to the throne of Karasuno as Kitagawa’s former protectorate.

He had the rare sea-blue eyes many from Kitagawa were known for, or so Kenma had heard.

Because, of course, Kitagawa and its kingdom by the sea no longer existed. Shiratorizawa had razed the white towers to the ground two years ago.

At one point during dinner, Prince Tobio snapped his head up and caught Kenma studying him.

He glared even more fiercely in response, and Kenma slid his gaze away immediately, turning his attention to the other members of the company instead.

Tobio had come with a full retinue, as one would expect for such a journey. But it had been immediately apparent upon meeting the knights from Karasuno that while some of them spoke and laughed with each other with the comfortable ease of many years of acquaintance, others had not been in his service long.

To this point, Kenma was surprised to note that they behaved only slightly more formally with their prince than Tora, Yaku and Kuroo did with him—only one of the knights audibly called Tobio “Your Highness,” and when he did it was in a tone of such naked mockery that, looking at the thunderous expression on Prince Tobio’s face, Kenma half expected him to call for the knight’s head on a pike.

He might have, had not his captain passed by at that precise moment and squeezed Tobio’s shoulder gently, saying something inaudible that made his fierce grip on the cutlery relax just slightly.

The captain of Karasuno’s guard was a steady, grounding presence who had won Kenma’s favor immediately with the way his eyes had widened when he was introduced to Kuroo outside the main gate and the soft awe in his voice when he had repeated, “Kuroo, you said? Any relation to Kuroo Katsumi?”

“My mother,” Kuroo said. His pride had been obvious, as it always was.

Kuroo had never met his father; he had died in battle before Katsumi had ever appeared at the palace gates one winter with her infant son strapped to her chest and her sword on her back. She had raised him alone.

Kuroo’s mother had been Nekoma’s champion for many years, but she was more memorable to Kenma as a kind woman with wild dark hair and laughing golden eyes, who went barefoot whenever she wasn’t in armor.

She meant the world to Kenma, whose father was always busy and mother was long since gone. Queen Koshka was deeply kind, and she had done her best, but she had an unruly child and a kingdom to help govern as well and did not always have time for anything else.

And so, despite being busy enough raising her own son while defending Nekoma, Katsumi had also taken it upon herself to look after Kenma.

She had read stories to him and Kuroo while they fell asleep, and picked Kenma up and sang to him softly when he cried, and trained them both to hold a sword.

She would sit with him on her lap and brush his hair out while he fidgeted and Kuroo sat by her feet and struggled, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration, to lift her shield with its painted panther rampant.

The Black Knight was well known throughout Nekoma and the surrounding territories now, but the Panther of Nekoma had been renowned across the Seven Kingdoms. She had fought at Shinzen, back before the wall of Dateko was even built.

She was a legend, but she had been far more than that to Kuroo, and to Kenma by extension.

But then a sickness had come through the city when Kenma was nine and Kuroo was ten, the worst in half a century, everyone had said, and more than half the palace had fallen ill. Kuroo’s mother was among them.

By that time, Kenma had already discovered he could learn a lot of things he wasn’t meant to just by being quiet and listening, because people didn’t pay attention to him.

That was how he overheard the physician whispering to his father in the echoing stairwell outside her room that it was fitting an illness would be the thing to defeat her, since no man alive ever could.

Until that point, Kenma hadn’t realized that it was possible that the illness would defeat her at all. It seemed impossible. She was invincible.

“I know he’ll take care of you,” Katsumi had told Kenma, near to the end. She had sent Kuroo for something -- water, most likely, since the sickness brought with it a sweating fever -- and had beckoned Kenma over to her bedside once he had gone. “But don’t you forget to take care of him, too. You will, won’t you? Promise me, Kenma.”

She had squeezed his hand, and he remembered thinking that certainly she would be alright, because her skin was warm and her grip was strong. She would be fine, and there would be no need to promise at all.

But she was looking at him more seriously than he had ever seen, even through the growing haze of fever, and so Kenma had promised.

He had promised, even though he had no idea how he was supposed to take care of Kuroo, who was bigger and stronger and much braver and never seemed to need any help.

He supposed it was perhaps just one of the many things adults said to make themselves feel better, even if they didn’t mean anything.

*

The day after her funeral rites, not long after the day she had demanded Kenma’s promise, Kenma had gone looking for Kuroo and found him hiding underneath the writing desk in Kenma’s own rooms.

You couldn’t tell from the doorway, if you were only doing a quick survey of the chamber. But Kenma wasn’t, and he knew every hiding place in the palace besides.

Well-wishers had been in and out of Katsumi’s rooms all day, and Kuroo would have been discovered there immediately. He would have needed somewhere safe.

Kenma joined him under the desk, settling back against the wall. The stone was cold against his back through the velvet of his black tunic. It was newly spring, but the chill of winter was lingering.

He shifted deliberately close enough that Kuroo -- who valued touch much more than he did -- could lean against him, if he wanted to. After a moment, he did. He sagged into Kenma’s side, warm and heavy.

Kenma had no idea what to say, or if he should say anything. His own mother had died before he knew or could remember her. This was different. It was terrible in a way he didn’t know how to comprehend, or articulate.

He felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes for the dozenth time, but willed them back fiercely. Kuroo was always trying to comfort everyone else. He naturally thought of others first, and himself second. He didn’t need to be made to do that today, of all days.

“That didn’t take long,” Kuroo said, after a few moments of silence. He had already been tall for his age then, gangly limbs pulled in protectively against his body. His eyes were red from crying. “For you to find me,” he elaborated, at Kenma’s questioning look.

“No one’s allowed to come in here without mine or my father’s permission. It’s the safest place I know,” Kenma said by way of explanation, and Kuroo nodded. He scrubbed a sleeve over his face and took a shuddering breath.

“I know I should be stronger than this,” he said with his face still hidden, in a smaller voice than Kenma had ever heard him use. “She would want me to be.”

Kenma blinked. It was incongruous, the suggestion that the woman who had only ever looked at her son with pride so bright it almost hurt would feel less than that now. Moreso, the implication that Kuroo was somehow behaving in a manner that deserved to be thought less of.

“I think it’s alright not to be strong right now,” he said, cautiously, because he didn’t know if Kuroo wanted him to answer or just to listen. “Besides, she knew how brave you are. She believed in you more than anyone, she said so all the time.”

Kuroo was quiet, and Kenma cast about for something more convincing. Something tangible.

He considered pointing out that she had always said Kuroo would become the next champion of Nekoma after her; that just like everyone else, she knew her son would grow up to protect their kingdom.

But that seemed like quite a lot to put on someone at any time, let alone a time like this, and while Kenma had no doubt Kuroo would be a champion later, right now he was much too skinny and small.

“She told me she knew you would take care of me,” he said instead. It made his cheeks feel hot, because it was embarrassing to say, as it required admitting that she had thought Kenma needed to be taken care of. As if he was still a baby and couldn’t go anywhere or do anything on his own.

Kuroo had been looking after him that long, after all. Katsumi must have asked him to at some point, far back at the beginning, teasing, and young Kuroo had taken the task on as solemnly as any oath. Since Kenma could remember, and before.

He didn’t tell Kuroo the second thing Katsumi had said, squeezing Kenma’s hand in hers near the end. It didn’t seem as relevant.

“She did?” Kuroo asked, and Kenma knew he had made the right choice. Kuroo dropped his arm at last and looked over at him, sniffling. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“She knew she didn’t have to,” Kenma said. He hadn’t thought of it before, but he knew it was true as he said it. “She knew you would, anyway.”

“Oh,” Kuroo said. He thought about that for a little while.

And then, with a watery smile, “Well, I suppose I have to, then, don’t I?”

*

That had been years and years ago now, but Kenma still thought of it when Sawamura Daichi said Katsumi’s name together with Kuroo’s like it was an honor.

*

It became apparent very quickly that Sawamura’s calm, practical demeanor was necessary to balance the chaotic exuberance of other members of the company.

Two of the knights from Karasuno, who had clearly never been to Nekoma before, got up to the battlements before dinner and began yelling excitedly that they could see the sea. Sawamura had gotten a terrifyingly blank look on his face, excused himself politely, and gone to collect them.

Whatever he said to them on the wall was inaudible, but when the three of them returned the two younger knights looked pale.

“That’s Lake Biwa,” Kuroo told them. He was the picture of politeness, but anyone who knew him could see the struggle not to laugh playing out on his face. “The sea is about a hundred leagues to the west.”

“We apologize for our rudeness,” the shorter knight with the huge dark eyes all but shouted at Kenma, who retreated a step into Kuroo out of sheer surprise. The short knight then bowed deeply and allowed his fellow with close-cropped hair to apologize, marginally less loudly but no less intensely.

They were wearing matching gold bands, and Kenma thought that probably made sense but was a bit unfair for the world at large, since it meant they could not be separated into more easily manageable halves.

Sawamura’s second in command Sugawara Koushi was as unflappable and cheerful as the two knights -- Nishinoya Yuu and Tanaka Ryuunosuke, Kenma learned later -- were boisterous.

Sugawara seemed completely at ease in a strange kingdom and began immediately befriending anyone he spoke to, charming the kitchen maids and pages as equally as the members of the court.

The other tenured knight did not appear comfortable in a strange kingdom, or indeed his own skin, in the slightest. Despite being taller and broader than almost anyone present, Azumane Asahi jumped when Yaku asked him a question, jumped again when Lev said a loud hello, and nearly knocked over a centuries-old ornamental candelabra in his following haste to apologize.

Those were the only introductions they had time for, since to go through the entire roster of knights on both sides would have taken considerably longer and the bell had just been rung to call them all to dinner.

After dinner there were still further ceremonial proceedings involving all the court.

Kenma’s father gave a speech about friendship and making two kingdoms stronger that went on for some time, and then Sawamura presented the king with a gift from Karasuno: an obsidian crow with wings outstretched and eyes set in rubies.

Kenma thought it was somewhat tasteless, but Takeshi seemed pleased.

The whole affair was giving Kenma a headache. Near the end of the night the constant presence of too many other people finally became too much, and he was distantly aware that he had to find a way to remove himself, at once.

He could sense Kuroo’s eyes on him, could feel his worry as surely as if it was his own, and made himself meet his gaze across the crowded hall long enough to shake his head a fraction. They both knew Kuroo couldn’t come and make certain Kenma was all right. Not now, when they all had duties to attend to and decorum must be observed.

There were visitors wandering all through the palace, and it was too loud and too bright in most of the places Kenma might have normally sought out for some quiet. His father would never allow him to go up to his rooms, and the library was closed off for the evening. That left only one option.

When no one was watching him during a break in the proceedings, Kenma slipped past the posted guard at the doors and escaped out into the gardens. There were still courtiers around, discussing extensively the quality of the dinner and the proportionate handsomeness of each guest from Karasuno, but it was easy to avoid them in the shadows.

In this manner, he made it all the way across the lawn, and to the entrance and the muffling dark of the vast hedge maze.

The maze had been there Kenma’s whole life, and far longer than that besides. It stretched all the way from one boundary tower of the southern wall to the other, doubling back and winding around itself in a patternless labyrinth that had originally been planned as part of an escape route if the walls were ever to fall and the palace to become compromised.

That had never happened, in all of Nekoma’s history, and after so many years the maze was more decorative than functional.

To Kenma, it had always been a refuge. Somewhere no one else went, where almost no one would think to look for him.

The high walls of the hedges immediately dulled the noise and light of the festivities, and Kenma found that he could breathe again after walking for only a few moments. The relief was almost overwhelming. He felt dazed with it.

It had been some time since Nekoma had hosted quite so many people, and Kenma had forgotten the extent to which he couldn’t stand it.

Friends were one thing -- Kenma had known most of Dateko’s knights for years, for better or for worse, and Fukurodani were in Nekoma almost more often than they weren’t -- but strangers were entirely another. He could never relax fully. He had to dress in his uncomfortable stately clothing and wear his crown and be addressed formally, all of which he hated.

Above all he had to be noticed, and that was worse than the rest of it put together.

For a moment, he wondered what the Karasuno court would be like. If it would be insufferably formal, like Dateko’s, or if he would be allowed to spend time quietly by himself the way he could here.

But he turned away from that mental path just as quickly, because it made fear spike in his chest, so suddenly it was painful.

Delving too deeply into his inevitable future was unhelpful. He could only accept it, for now, if he kept it at a distance.

*

Kenma walked quite without thinking about it, operating on memory alone, for several minutes.

And so when he paused at a juncture with two branching paths he realized he was not, in fact, alone in the maze barely a fraction of a second before the person he was not alone in it with came running full tilt from the other direction and slammed right into him.

Kenma’s first dazed impression, looking up from flat on his back, was that the sun had come out in the middle of the night.

Then the sun resolved itself into a person. A halo of wild orange hair, above a pointed face with large copper-brown eyes.

It was the smallest knight from Karasuno, one of the few Kenma had not met earlier before dinner. He remembered him, though; an autumn-colored blur at Tobio’s back, darting every which way to examine his surroundings and exclaim excitedly to one or another of his fellow knights.

Tobio had eventually snapped at him to stop it and the small knight had, but not without throwing his liege the most insolent look imaginable.

“You have my apologies!” he said hastily now, eyes widening as he realized who it was, bobbing his head in a bow. He bounded to his feet and held out a hand to help Kenma up. “Are you alright? You’re alright, aren’t you? Daichi specifically told us not to create,” he gestured wildly and went on with heavy emphasis, “A political incident, so--”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Kenma said, which was more or less true. He looked around and saw his crown gleaming at his feet between them, and bent to pick it up. “What are you doing in here?”

“Oh! Nothing in particular.” The knight scrubbed the back of his head with one hand, looking in either direction and then back at Kenma with a mildly panicked expression. “It’s only, I seem to have lost my way.”

“Oh. That’s not uncommon,” Kenma said, blinking. “I’ll help you back out. But I meant, how did you come to be in the maze in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” the small knight said, looking mournful. “I was running because I was late, and I thought I was going the right way, and then there kept appearing,” he waved around them frantically, “still more hedges? And then it began getting dark, and—”

“I see,” Kenma interrupted. He didn’t, at all, but if he didn’t say something he was concerned they might never leave. He took a moment to reorient himself after the fall, and then pointed. “It’s this way.”

“Thank you,” the knight said as they began to walk, practically humming with relief. “I’m Shouyou!”

It was much too informal an introduction, but Kenma didn’t mind. In fact, after the neverending formality of the day, it was a relief. “I’m Kenma,” he said.

“I know! I mean, it’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Prince Kenma,” Shouyou said, doing a bow midstep that overbalanced him and almost sent him reeling into a hedge. “I mean, Your Highness!”

“There’s no need to stand on ceremony,” Kenma said. Despite how wearing the evening had been, he felt oddly lighter now. He had expected to be extremely vexed to have his quiet intruded upon, but somehow wasn’t. Shouyou’s presence didn’t feel oppressive, the way others’ did.

He watched Shouyou carefully in case he fell over again. “The titles, and all of that. I don’t much care for it.”

Nekoma’s court was far from formal under normal circumstances, and Kuroo and the others only called him “Your Highness” when the king was watching, or when they were trying to annoy him, or both.

“I don’t think I would like having this maze on our grounds,” Shouyou said after a few moments of silence, looking around uneasily at the identical walls of leaves towering over them. “I suspect I would get lost all the time.”

“You probably would,” Kenma said, only half-paying attention because he was focused on the path. He realized a moment too late that this was a very rude thing to say, but Shouyou seemed entirely unfazed and only nodded in emphatic agreement with his own point. “You never get lost?” he inquired.

“No,” Kenma said.

“Not ever?” Shouyou demanded, his tone implying that this was unacceptable. “How?”

“Well, Kuroo...that is, my captain of the guard,” Kenma started. Shouyou pushed his bangs down and the rest of his hair up, demonstratively, and Kenma nodded, coughing so he wouldn’t laugh.

“We grew up together,” he told Shouyou. “When we were younger he was worried I would wander into the maze and no one would be able to find me. I don’t always pay attention to where I’m going. So he made me go through the hedge with him every day for, I don’t know, weeks.”

Shouyou tilted his head to one side, eyes wide and mouth open just slightly. Kenma didn’t think he’d ever had someone listen to him quite so intently. It was unsettling.

“I was afraid to go in initially, but he told me if I went through it often enough I would know it by heart,” Kenma said, and shrugged. He dropped his gaze, uncomfortable under the other’s scrutiny.

He could still remember it clearly, one of his first memories: Kuroo with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his teasing face, wooden sword in one small hand, holding out the other to Kenma.

I’ll be with you every step of the way, he’d promised. I won’t leave you alone in there. Not for one moment.

So Kenma had taken his hand, and Kuroo had led him into the maze. He was true to his word, as always; he hadn’t left him alone. Not for a moment then, or for all the years afterwards.

“It was annoying,” Kenma said now, grimacing, “but I can’t say he was wrong. I’ve never lost my way once since I was six years old.”

“It sounds like he’s a good captain,” Shouyou said decisively. “Did you know, he’s famous even in Karasuno?”

Kenma sighed, imagining the look on Kuroo’s face if he heard as much. “Please don’t tell him that.”

“And he’s the Panther’s son! She’s even more famous. I would love to be that famous for fighting, someday.” Shouyou’s tone was wistful. “Have you heard of the Giant of Karasuno?”

“Of course,” Kenma said, following the rapidly changing course of the conversation with some difficulty.

He had had to learn every notable knight, prince and nobleman in every kingdom four generations back by the time he was eight years old, and the fabled Giant of Karasuno was more notable than most. He had fought the last dragon seen this side of the Ishikari Sea, and beat the great black lizard soundly enough that it had flown off to the mountains and never made itself a nuisance again.

Everyone had said that if he had still been alive for the war, it might have gone much differently.

“He was my great-grandfather,” Shouyou said, eyes alight with an almost feverish quality. “I’m going to be just like him.”

Despite the fact that the tiny redheaded knight had somehow wandered into a massive hedge maze on accident and gotten hopelessly lost, Kenma had the oddest sense, watching him now, that he was right.

“Are you excited about the marriage?” Shouyou asked next, and Kenma wished he hadn’t. It had been an almost pleasant conversation up until then.

He felt the creeping panic loom at the edges of his mind again, and worked to banish it. He deliberated how best to phrase his response, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. After a moment, he settled on, “I don’t find it disagreeable.”

It wasn’t precisely a lie, but it wasn’t the truth by half. And so Kenma was startled when Shouyou cut right to the heart of the matter and leaned closer to say confidentially, “I wouldn’t blame you if you were feeling reluctant.”

He shook his head. “Kageyama is so difficult to become acquainted with, and he yells all the time, and his face is terrible all the time.” He schooled his own bright features into a passable stormy grimace, and startled a laugh out of Kenma at the implausible juxtaposition.

“But I promise,” Shouyou went on, waving a hand dismissively, “he’s not nearly so mean as he makes you believe. He just misses home, and he’s worried about what Shiratorizawa is planning, and he’s taking it out on everyone else as usu--oh!” He tugged on Kenma’s sleeve excitedly. “You did it! We’re back!”

They were indeed back, having emerged out into the gardens on the other side of the maze, near the stables. Faint nickering was audible, the sleeping horses roused by Shouyou’s shouting.

Kenma watched Shouyou celebrate their newfound freedom and wondered if the knight knew how he lit up even brighter when he talked about his prince, even when he was scowling. He rather thought not.

Oh, he thought but did not say aloud, because you never knew who was listening, even out in the gardens. You love him. How terrible for you.

“Your party is all quartered in the southern wing,” Kenma said, and indicated which direction Shouyou should go. “Do you know how to get there from here?”

“Yes,” Shouyou said very decisively, and Kenma had his doubts but allowed the knight to all but skip away, after bowing lopsidedly to Kenma and saying, “Goodnight, Pr--Kenma! I hope I will see you tomorrow!”

Kenma realized he was smiling, and stopped doing it immediately.

*

Kenma’s walk back to the other side of the palace took him past his father’s study, and he had already passed by when he heard a familiar voice and retraced his steps, doubling back.

“We know Shiratorizawa will make a formal move against us,” Kuroo was saying. “It is not a question of if, it is is a question of when. If you would just allow me--”

“I will not allow you,” the king’s voice interrupted, calm and unmoved.

Kenma stepped closer, peering through the crack in the doors to see Kuroo, standing before the vast charting table that occupied most of the room with his helmet under one arm. He was still in full livery from the day’s formal proceedings, ceremonial armor and red cape and all.

Kenma’s father had his head bent and was studying one of the many unfurled maps spread out over the table’s surface. He had already stripped off his crimson fur-lined robes and thrown them carelessly over the back of a chair.

Takeshi was adamant about the importance of decorum, but he had little patience for the trappings of royalty when no one was watching.

“I have listened to your proposal, as you asked, Tetsurou,” he said without looking up. “You are right that King Ushijima will make a play for Nekoma, as he will for all of the Seven Kingdoms. We have known that for some time. The necessary preparations are being made, and we need as much time as he will give us to shore up our own defenses. We cannot force his hand.”

Kenma knew what Kuroo was going to say next, because he had talked to Kenma about it often enough; studying potential battle formations by candlelight or lying stretched out on his back beneath one of the trees in the garden, telling half-formed plans to Kenma while Kenma sat beside him and listened.

“Seijoh might be willing to form an alliance,” Kuroo said.

Takeshi looked up at that, the hard set of his mouth making it all too plain how he felt about this new suggestion. Unlike Kenma, it would be the first time he had heard it. Like Kenma, he would be hard-pressed to find it welcome.

Kuroo, to his credit, did not quail under the clear disapproval in the king’s gaze. He went on, “Without one, our united front up north is worth very little. If Seijoh falls, Ushijima will have all but a clear path to Nekoma. Only Dateko stands between us then.”

“Only Dateko? Do not say that so lightly. The wall has kept back worse threats than Shiratorizawa, in its time,” Takeshi said. “It will take more than this for it to crumble.”

“Besides,” he went on, derision clearly audible in his voice, “Seijoh will not help anyone but themselves. I have spoken to our neighbors to the south and east. King Oikawa has not responded to letters from Dateko or Fukurodani for nearly a month. Messengers were sent, and were turned away without an audience.”

Kuroo gave no sign that he found this information surprising. “We can’t let them stand alone. For their sake or ours.”

“They chose to stand alone,” Takeshi said, voice like the crack of a whip. “Seijoh does not want our help. They have made that clear enough.”

He planted his palms flat on the table. “In any case, it is hardly relevant. Even if I did think the endeavor worth the risk, we cannot send a formal envoy out to a foreign territory, especially now that we are allied with Karasuno. Not without it being a clear declaration of our intent to position ourselves against Shiratorizawa.”

“King Ushijima knows we will, whether we confirm it for him or not.”

“Of course he does,” Takeshi said. “The pieces are set. Everyone involved knows what game we are playing. But nothing has been done, nothing has been said, that cannot be taken back. I will not start a war to try and bargain with a child king who does not want to be bargained with.”

“It doesn’t need to be a formal envoy to Seijoh,” Kuroo said. “I can go myself. I, and a few of the others. If--”

Up until now, Kenma had predicted both halves of this conversation would carry out exactly as they had, because he had all the necessary pieces of information, but this was new.

Kenma was so startled to hear him say it -- Kuroo, of all people, wanted to leave Nekoma? For Seijoh? -- that he didn’t realize his father had cut him off for the space of several seconds.

“This is the plan meant to convince me?” Takeshi was asking. “Send my best soldiers away from home on the eve of war?”

“We could at least try,” Kuroo pressed. “A true united front, think what that would be worth.”

“I gave you my answer, Tetsurou,” Takeshi said. He pulled a new map towards himself and gestured towards the door. A clear dismissal. “Kindly remember your place.”

Kuroo bowed his head, and Kenma saw that his hands were white knuckled behind his back. He was silent for a long moment, and then, “Thank you for the audience,” he said quietly, and turned to go.

“Tetsurou,” the king said, and Kuroo looked back. Takeshi looked up from the maps, gaze steady. “Your mother was one of my most trusted soldiers and advisors. I hope you know that I hold you in the same esteem, or I would not have granted you this audience. Please do not give me cause to regret it.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Kuroo said, after a pause. “I promise you I will not.”

He raised his eyebrows at seeing Kenma when he exited, but did not appear overly surprised. He said nothing as he fell into step with him, continuing on down the hallway, until they were far enough away not to be overheard.

“You heard?” he asked.

“Seijoh?” Kenma asked. He didn’t voice the full question aloud, and Kuroo didn’t make him elaborate.

“I know it’s not possible for me to go, not really,” Kuroo said. “It’s why I didn’t mention it to you.” The apology was clear in the way he said it, and Kenma was satisfied.

Kuroo sighed, tugging at his hair and looking frustrated. “I just can’t stop thinking about how many problems it would solve at once, if it were to work.”

Kenma wasn’t so sure. Yes, to have Seijoh on their side would be immeasurably valuable, but that ignored the impossibility of it.

He thought about his father saying that King Oikawa would not even agree to see messengers. That was surprising, or maybe it wasn’t. Kenma didn’t know enough about the king of Seijoh to draw a definite conclusion.

The Wolf of Seijoh, some called him. And others, less kindly, the boy king. He had been just seventeen when he’d left his own kingdom to found a new one.

Seijoh was like an isolated estate overgrown with the prickly vines of not-so-amiable historical entanglements involving Nekoma’s allies, and the effort and time required to surpass and repair those old biases would be far more than they had at their disposal.

To attempt it as things stood now, Kenma thought, would be akin to attempting to cut through the vast thicket of thorns with a pocket knife.

“I’m sorry my father is like that,” Kenma said, changing the subject rather than saying any of it aloud. Kuroo shook his head. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking rueful.

“I know what he’s like,” he said. His tone was light. Anyone else might even have believed he was unbothered. “He had his mind made up before he even met with me. I knew that, but I thought perhaps...well, I had to try, anyway.”

Kenma didn’t ask why he had to. Even if he had been as startled as his father to hear the name Seijoh come from Kuroo’s mouth, given a moment’s thought it would have made perfect sense.

Uniting the Seven Kingdoms was a fantasy, but it was one Katsumi had spoken of over and over when they were younger. How things used to be, before her time, before even the Giant’s time. Before the empire splintered and reformed itself into discrete pieces.

Kenma knew that some things were much too broken to be put back together. It was a concept he didn’t think Kuroo likely to accept.

“I was wondering where you got off to,” Kuroo added, changing the subject. He reached out and plucked a leaf from near Kenma’s ear, looking amused. “Got lost in the hedges?”

“You know I wouldn’t,” Kenma said. He touched his hair self-consciously, checking for any other debris from his fall. “Shouyou did. I helped him find his way out.”

“Shouyou?”

“The little knight from Karasuno.”

“Oho,” Kuroo said, eyes glinting, and held up the leaf he’d found in Kenma’s hair with new interest. “Were you two…”

Kenma took his meaning immediately and said sharply, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He could feel that he was blushing, and desperately hoped that Kuroo couldn’t. His deepening smirk suggested he absolutely could.

“Kenma!” Kuroo put a hand to his heart. He looked delighted. “An illicit romance is far from ridiculous. It is, in fact, a noble tradition.”

“Not because of that,” Kenma said, wrinkling his nose, although that was absurd as well. His face still felt hot, and he walked more quickly, starting up the stone steps to the second floor ahead of Kuroo. He hated when Kuroo teased him like this. “Because he’s in love with his prince. I know you noticed too.”

Kuroo made an amused sound in acknowledgment behind him. “I don’t think that little knight has ever tried to hide anything he feels, even once in his life. But aren’t you bothered? Tobio is your betrothed, after all. Shouldn’t you feel envious?”

Kenma made a face at him over his shoulder, and Kuroo poked him so he would watch where he was going. “I pity Shouyou, that’s all,” Kenma said. “It’s foolish. There’s no happy ending in this for him. I don’t think he even realizes.”

“No happy ending for him, nor for anyone involved,” Kuroo agreed as they emerged from the stairwell. He was already unclasping the heavy cape from his shoulders, folding the crimson fabric up between gloved hands. He rolled one shoulder and then the other, clearly glad to be free of the weight of it. “But I don’t believe foolish is a fair word. It’s not as if he made a choice.”

They had reached Kenma’s rooms.

Kenma shook his head at Kuroo’s words, frowning. “Not guarding your heart is a choice,” he said. He pushed his doors open and paused on the threshold, turning back to face Kuroo. “Anything that happens because of that is only one’s own fault.”

Kuroo shrugged. He wasn’t quite making eye contact now, and Kenma found that odd. “Not everyone can be logical all the time, Kenma.”

It wasn’t spoken like an insult, but Kenma found it stung all the same. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t receive an answer at first, and the silence between them stretched long enough that Kenma was about to ask again when Kuroo spoke.

“Haven’t you ever wanted something just for yourself?” he asked. The torches were burning low along the wall with the hour, and he was half in shadow, like an oil painting in gold and black. “Just because you want it?”

But that wasn’t an answer at all, Kenma thought to point out. That was just another question.

“No,” Kenma said. He answered before he thought about it. He didn’t want to think about it, and didn’t know why.

“No,” Kuroo echoed with his unreadable smile. “I suppose not.”

“Kuroo,” Kenma started, because things were strange and unfamiliar between them again now, the way they had started becoming more and more often lately, with no warning or explanation.

Kuroo had always been the most familiar thing Kenma had, a touchstone for normalcy. Kenma had him memorized, just like the number of steps up from the courtyard or the path of the hedge maze. He didn’t understand when that had changed, or why, and he hated it.

“Goodnight, Kenma,” Kuroo said with a soft quirk of his mouth, and left for his own rooms before anything more could be said.

*****

From the first day Karasuno arrived in Nekoma, Kenma dedicated all of his efforts towards the avoidance of spending any time in Prince Tobio’s company whatsoever.

It wasn’t difficult; all he had to do was carefully take note of the Karasuno knights’ comings and goings and common whereabouts so that he could situate himself wherever they were not at any given moment, and with few exceptions it had worked out very well.

Unfortunately, Yaku and Kuroo noticed what he was doing at the end of the third day and interfered to ruin it completely.

“You realize if you do this at the wedding, it will make for a terribly awkward ceremony,” Yaku pointed out while he dragged Kenma out of the library after supper. “You may even have to look at him.”

“You’re not amusing,” Kenma said. He tried to slip free, but Yaku had an iron grip on the back of his doublet. Yaku was impossible to get away from, which was an excellent quality in a soldier and a terrible quality in a friend.

“He doesn’t want to spend time with me either,” Kenma told Yaku balefully. “If anything, he wants it even less than I do.”

It was the truth -- Tobio was so occupied with avoiding Kenma at the same time that Kenma was avoiding him that they had at one point yesterday come abruptly face to face with each other hiding in the kitchens, which had been very awkward indeed.

“Even more reason,” Yaku said without mercy, and handed him off to a grinning Kuroo.

And that was how it came about that Kenma, with Kuroo magnanimously self-appointed as chaperone, ended up showing a deeply reluctant Prince Tobio around the palace and out into the gardens.

When they walked past the training grounds, Kenma was startled to see Tobio’s expression rearrange itself to register something besides dark fury for the first time. He had stopped dead and was gazing out at the practice ring and stands with something like longing.

“Have you ever participated in a tournament?” Kenma asked, because neither of them had spoken for some time and Kuroo had just nudged him pointedly in the small of the back. Kenma fantasized about pushing him off the edge of the stands into the dirt.

“Yes, many times,” Tobio said at once, and then, after a very long pause in which he must have realized that he ought to offer a question in return, he asked, “Have you?”

There was just enough doubt audible in the asking that Kenma couldn’t help but sigh, because he had an unfortunate feeling that he knew exactly what would follow.

“We have,” Kuroo answered in his worst voice, smile broadening and eyes glittering gold. “Many times.”

Kenma was so used to Kuroo that he often forgot what it looked like when he wanted to appear just as menacing as strangers sometimes thought him at first glance. Tall and looming, with a cruel slant to his curved mouth. A villain from one of Dateko’s long catalog of moral fables.

Tobio, understandably, looked startled.

“I’ve had a thought,” Kuroo said brightly, as if something had just occurred to him. Kenma didn’t believe it for one second, and, far too late, because he had been distracted by plotting how to make Yaku and Kuroo pay for this, put together that Kuroo had been planning this from the very start. “What would you say to a practice melee? If your knights are willing, of course.”

Tobio’s expression cleared instantly. “Karasuno accepts,” he said without hesitation. He looked eager, and Kenma was unprepared for how much the expression changed his face. When he wasn’t scowling, he was almost handsome.

He could see it, he thought. What Shouyou had meant, in the hedge maze. What he saw that others outside Karasuno might never have the chance to. He only regretted deeply that the impetus for the change, in this particular instance, was going to lead to undue effort on Kenma’s part.

“It’s much too late for a melee,” Kenma said, glaring at Kuroo. That sort of game would involve rousing and saddling several of the horses, and clearing the practice grounds entirely to make room for a full set of mounted knights on either side. “We would wake the whole palace, and Tora and Shouhei are on guard for hours yet. They can’t leave their posts just because a whim strikes you.”

“Very well then, you’re right,” Kuroo said, and Tobio’s face fell. Kenma did not even have time to breathe a sigh of relief before he went on, “What about just sparring? Two on two.”

“I hate it when you act like this,” Kenma said to Kuroo, once Tobio had disappeared to fetch his armor and partner with a worrying new glint in his eyes. “I don’t want to fight right now. I’m tired.”

“I was defending your honor, Kenma!” Kuroo said with such an utter lack of remorse that it made Kenma want to kick him. “As a knight of the realm, it is my sworn duty, and you know I am nothing if not dutiful. Now, let’s get you into your armor.”

He took Kenma’s hand and tugged him back in the direction of his rooms. “Here, I’ll help you.”

Annoyance bubbled up. At Kuroo’s cavalier attitude, or at the fact that he was once again forcing Kenma to think about something he would far rather ignore, it was hard to say. Either way, the feeling was so sudden and unexpected it made him feel unbalanced.

Kenma jerked his hand free and said sharply, “I don’t need you to help me.” He took a step back, crossing his arms protectively over his chest and looking away. “You’re only making everything worse.”

Kuroo was quiet for a long moment.

The mood had shifted again. Kenma didn’t know how to make it stop happening. Conversations with Kuroo used to be so easy, the way they weren’t with anyone else, and now it felt as if each one was full of pitfalls.

Like trying to navigate at sea in a storm, with no compass or stars to sail by. It was terrifying. Kenma felt sick with it.

“You would rather go off to Karasuno having spent no time in the prince’s company, or that of any of his knights, at all?” Kuroo asked at last.

Kenma couldn’t tell if it was a genuine question or a hypothetical one. Either way it hurt like aching.

“Perhaps I do,” he said, just to be contrary. He couldn’t think about that, about the inevitable day growing steadily closer with each passing minute. That would dash the already wayward ship against the rocks, to ruin.

“Well, I can’t stand the thought of you surrounded by strangers, even if you can,” Kuroo said. He smiled, but it looked like it took effort this time.

He held out his hand again. This time he didn’t take Kenma’s, only held his own open. An offer, not a demand. “Now, are you going to let me help you or are you going to be spiteful and make us wait another hour while you get your things on?”

Kenma was grateful enough that the tense moment seemed to have passed that he only hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take Kuroo’s hand and allowing himself be led.

*

When they all met back at the practice grounds, half an hour later, Kenma was unsurprised to see that Tobio had chosen the bright, redheaded knight as his second.

“Kenma!” Shouyou said, excitedly, upon seeing him. He had been gazing around in delight at the training grounds when they walked up, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Good evening!”

Kenma could feel Kuroo grinning behind him at the informality of the address, and did not give him the satisfaction of looking around.

“Good evening, Shouyou,” he said, and inclined his head. It was surprisingly nice to see him again, though maybe that shouldn’t have been so unexpected; Kenma had noticed that the knight had a way of setting everyone around him at ease, quite without trying. Erratic as he was, he was balancing.

Shouyou’s armor was as bright and shining as if it had never seen battle, but when Kenma looked closely he thought he recognized the sun and starbursts of light engraved in the steel from descriptions of long ago.

It was the Giant of Karasuno’s armor passed down, he would have wagered money on it. It had been polished with such care that it looked new again.

“Is everyone ready?” Kuroo asked, and Tobio nodded once. The prince’s expression was almost frighteningly focused behind the grate of his helmet. “To three hits, then,” Kuroo said. “Do be kind enough not to cause any serious damage, to avoid creating a diplomatic incident.”

Shouyou, who had previously mentioned being warned about diplomatic incidents and the creation thereof, nodded vigorously in understanding.

Kenma studied their opponents across the circle. Even though he didn’t want to go through the effort of a fight, his mind was working already on its own behalf to make calculations, assumptions based on the way Tobio and Shouyou moved out of armor to lend him insight as to how they might act in it.

He had known Shouyou would be fast.

He had not known that Shouyou was faster than anyone Kenma had ever seen. Faster than Yaku, faster even than Inuoka. Kenma had barely registered him moving -- a blur of orange and silver -- before his blade tapped against Kenma’s arm and then he had danced back again.

Kenma blinked. Shouyou had first feinted right, convincingly and with enough of his weight behind it that Kenma had had no doubt that he was guarding the right direction. He should not have been able to double back and strike from the left anywhere near as quickly as he had.

“Naught to one,” Kuroo said. Kenma had been occupied wholly with Shouyou, but it seemed that neither Kuroo nor Tobio had landed a hit in the necessary time. Perhaps Kuroo had been as taken off guard by their opponents as Kenma.

They all separated again, and this time, Kenma didn’t watch Shouyou. He watched what passed between him and Tobio, an entire conversation quite without speaking. The glance they exchanged, the subtle shake of a head or tilt of a chin.

That was it, he realized, and knew he should have seen it sooner. It wasn’t the one or the other that was the singular threat. It was both of them, and the space between them.

It was like a burst of flame, flaring up out of control. That was what Kenma thought of, watching the two of them in motion. Raw power, unfocused. Instinct more than anything. That sort of attack was almost impossible to guard against.

But they couldn’t control it either, and that was the key. If they couldn’t control it, they couldn’t sustain it. Nekoma had been trained to fight differently. They were taught to work like the flowing of a river, sure and steady, wearing down every rock in their path.

Because he was watching for it this time, Kenma saw Tobio’s gaze flick left. Saw Shouyou move the same direction instantly, without hesitation, as if his body was an extension of his prince’s thoughts.

Because he was watching for it, Kenma brought his sword up to block in time. Shouyou had thrown himself into the swing and put his full weight behind it, too much so to take back, perhaps because he did not yet know how to discern when to only commit himself halfway and perhaps because he simply wasn’t capable.

Kenma fell back a step deliberately, putting Shouyou off balance, and then Kuroo was there behind him, just as Kenma had known he would be, touching his blade to the back of Shouyou’s knee with a flash of a grin. “One and one.”

Kuroo looked over at Kenma, mouth curved, and Kenma knew that he had realized also. He spent most of his time on strategy, after all. Kuroo too had recognized that while Shouyou and Tobio had something remarkable, that did not make them unbeatable.

Tobio struggled back to his feet from where Kuroo had, evidently, gotten under his guard and used his greater height and weight to bodily knock the prince onto his back in the dirt. He looked -- not angry, precisely, but something. He did not seem well accustomed to doing anything but winning.

Kenma stared at Kuroo until he looked back at him, and then tipped his head deliberately. He didn’t need to check if Kuroo had understood; as soon as Shouyou moved this time, Kuroo switched their places easily, a practiced maneuver that never failed to make Tora complain loudly when they used it against him.

Neither of the Karasuno knights was expecting it, that much was clear; Tobio had already begun to swing his sword, a blow that would have landed just as intended on someone taller but which Kenma was able to duck under, while Kuroo got past Shouyou’s first clumsy block easily and tapped him on the shoulder with the edge of his sword. “Two and one,” Kuroo said, beaming.

The fourth round, no one moved forward for several seconds. Tobio paced a short line and back, eyes fixed on both of them. Shouyou was practically thrumming with pent up energy.

“Whenever you’re done resting,” Kuroo said generously.

Tobio’s weight shifted minutely from his back foot to his front, and Kenma saw the move he was going to make before he made it. Kuroo was occupied with defending against Shouyou’s sudden flurry of blows, and did not notice Tobio’s intent.

Kenma took a step half in front of Kuroo to block the blow, but Tobio didn’t fall for the same trick twice; this time he adjusted the trajectory of the swing in time, dropping under Kenma’s guard to strike against his ribs with the edge of the practice blade.

Tobio’s accuracy was frightening; he had struck a gap in the overlapping pieces of Kenma’s armor, a hard-to-spot weak point that would have caused real damage in a genuine fight.

Blunted sword or not, Tobio had both height and weight on Kenma and there was enough force behind the hit to half knock the wind out of him. He staggered back a step, fetching up against Kuroo’s side, but stayed standing.

That was going to bruise badly, he knew already.

Kenma felt Kuroo’s arm come up secure around him to hold Kenma against him where he had stumbled, steadying him while he regained his balance.

“Three and two,” Kuroo said, and Kenma glanced over to see him lower the tip of his sword from Shouyou’s breastplate. His hand left Kenma’s waist.

Tobio looked startled. Shouyou looked, of all things, delighted. “That was wonderful,” he breathed. “You’re amazing. We should do it again, oh we must, can we?”

“Another time,” Kuroo said, his amusement plain. His previous antagonism over Tobio’s poor attitude seemed to have been lost in the fight. “I promise,” he added, when Shouyou wilted slightly. “But not tonight. It’s growing late as it is, and we should all be getting some rest.”

“Tomorrow?” Shouyou pressed, and Kuroo laughed out loud as he sheathed his sword and held out his hand for Shouyou to clasp. “I will do my best, how is that?” he asked, and Shouyou beamed.

Kenma, who had absolutely no intention of doing anything of the sort again tomorrow, bid them all goodnight and used Shouyou demanding Kuroo tell him a story about the Panther of Nekoma as a cover to retreat hastily to the palace.

*

Kenma had unceremoniously removed his armor, scattered it across the floor, and was pulling his nightclothes out of his wardrobe when the door swung open, then shut again. He didn’t need to look up to know who it was, but he glanced back over one shoulder all the same.

“I’m not going back out there no matter what you promise,” he warned.

Kuroo said nothing at all in answer, which was unusual. He crossed the room in three long strides and tugged the shirt out of Kenma’s hands, maneuvering him so that he could see the reddening skin over Kenma’s ribs on his right-hand side. The mark of impact from Tobio’s final attack, when Kenma had twisted to block Kuroo’s unprotected right.

Kenma winced as Kuroo’s fingers tested a sensitive spot between two ribs. “Stop that,” he muttered.

“I knew it,” Kuroo said, eyes dark. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Kenma tipped his head back to meet his gaze in full, wondering what step in this conversation he had somehow missed. “You were there, weren’t you?”

Kuroo shook his head. He looked upset, far more upset than the situation warranted. “You should have said you were hurt.”

“I suspected you would overreact,” Kenma said slowly. “If you are done proving me wrong, may I have my shirt back?”

Kuroo was still touching him. His palms were hot like a brand against Kenma’s bare skin, and Kenma pulled away when he realized Kuroo wasn’t going to do it first. His heartbeat was thudding painfully hard in his chest, and he didn’t know why.

Kuroo handed him back the shirt wordlessly, and Kenma pulled it on over his head, smoothing out the wrinkles with far more care than he would have normally. It was helpful to have something to focus on, besides Kuroo’s odd behavior.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Kuroo said, more quietly. “You can’t ever do that again, do you understand?”

“It was a practice round,” Kenma said. He pulled his hair out of the ribbon he’d bound it up in for the fight and combed his fingers through the tangles. “I don’t think the opportunity to do it again will present itself terribly often. Besides, it’s a bit of bruising. You’re being irrational.”

“I’m not,” Kuroo said, which was strange. It was very obvious he was, and normally he would admit it.

He paced a line away, and then back. “It’s my task to protect you, not the other way around. I have taken many worse hits than that, and will again.”

“It was instinct,” Kenma said, and frowned at the implication. “Anyway, why is it fine for you to get hurt for me?”

“Because that is what I am meant to do, Kenma!” Kuroo snapped.

Kenma hated that. He hated that Kuroo had said it, and he hated that it was true. There was an old scar stretching across Kuroo’s abdomen proving just how true it was, and Kenma tasted bitterness in his mouth.

“I am tired of this conversation,” he said stonily. “You made me fight, and I did it, and now you’re not happy with that either. I don’t want to argue about it anymore. I just want to go to sleep.”

“You can’t end a conversation just because you don’t feel like having it,” Kuroo said.

“Why not?” Kenma asked. “It’s what you did to me the other night.” He shut his wardrobe more firmly than was necessary. “So if you aren’t going to admit that something more is bothering you than a child’s injury from sparring, you might as well leave.”

Kuroo didn’t deny the accusation, but he didn’t move towards the door either. “And what do you think is bothering me?”

Kenma felt annoyance threaten to spill over again and fought to keep his tone neutral. The words still came out a touch too sharp as he turned back to face Kuroo. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to ask.”

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo said after a moment, more quietly. “You’re right. I’m not being fair.”

That answered absolutely nothing at all, and Kenma was about to tell him so when Kuroo said, “I asked you, a month ago, if you were unhappy to be married. You said no. Is that still true?”

“Nothing has changed since then,” Kenma said. He didn’t question the change of subject. It seemed every conversation they had lately led back to this same topic. “So my answer hasn’t either.”

“But that’s not an answer, is it? It wasn’t then and it isn’t now.”

Kenma didn’t respond out of sheer frustration, because he absolutely could not believe Kuroo was insisting on having the same conversation over and over. He walked past him without saying anything and busied himself with re-stacking the books on his desk, rearranging the one precarious tower into two neater piles.

Kuroo was next to him then, taking the book out of his hand. “Please look at me,” he said, voice soft.

Kenma looked at him. He couldn’t not, when Kuroo said please.

Kuroo didn’t look angry anymore. Instead he looked almost lost, and that was much worse, because anger at least was easy to explain. It had definite causes and results, easy categorizations.

“You’re making everything so complicated,” Kenma said, abruptly. “I don’t know why.”

Booted footsteps were audible in the hallway outside, the night watch beginning their patrol, and Kuroo took a step closer to Kenma as if in response.

“I’m not trying to upset you. I am just asking if this is what you want,” he said. His gaze was searching. For a moment, Kenma was very sure Kuroo was about to reach out to him again, but he didn’t. His hands stayed at his sides. “Is it such a hard question?”

No, it wasn’t. And yes, it was. Because what did any of this have to do with what Kenma wanted? When had it ever, when he had never been free to make his own decisions, even once in his life?

“Will it somehow make you feel better to make me admit that I don’t want it?” Kenma asked evenly. He had inadvertently clenched his hands into fists so hard his nails were biting into his palms, and tried to relax them. “Even though it changes nothing? Do you want so badly for me to say it?”

From the look on his face, that was not what Kuroo wanted, at all. Kenma shook his head, close to anger now. “Then why is it that you can’t just leave it alone?”

“I know you don’t want to think about this,” Kuroo said in a low voice. Perhaps he had realized how late it was, and how loudly they had been speaking before. “But Kenma, you have to. You can’t pretend it isn’t happening. It will be so much worse if you do.”

That was it. Kenma couldn’t bear to have someone, anyone, even Kuroo, telling him what would make things worse or not, when as the day he was to be married drew nearer ‘worse’ was ceasing to have any quantifiable meaning at all.

“It isn’t happening to you,” Kenma said coldly, snatching his book back. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll deal with it however I want to.”

He took a deep breath, hugging the book to his chest. “Now are you going to leave my rooms, or am I going to have to call Yaku to come and make you?”

Kuroo didn’t say anything for a long moment.

Kenma couldn’t look at him. He was never cruel to Kuroo, not on purpose. He knew he had been cruel now. He had told Kuroo to leave him alone a thousand times, but never like this. He had asked, not ordered.

Then, “There’s no need for that, Your Highness,” Kuroo said. “I’ll go.”

Kenma felt the faintest brush of lips over the crown of his head, so soft he couldn’t be sure that it had actually happened, and then Kuroo was gone.

Chapter Text

For a royal marriage ceremony, it was customary for royals and nobility from allied kingdoms to be in attendance. Given how many alliances Nekoma had made throughout the years, this meant quite a lot of visitors indeed.

Under normal circumstances, Kenma would have viewed this as a waking nightmare. There were already a surplus of people cluttering up the library and the gardens and laughing loudly in the hallways without shepherding still more in. However, now he found that it was a welcome distraction for two reasons.

Firstly, because things were still strange with Kuroo, and as a result Kenma had been unable to relax or focus on anything else for days.

It wasn’t that they weren’t speaking -- Kuroo had acted as if nothing at all had happened the morning after their argument in Kenma’s rooms, and Kenma had followed his lead gratefully.

But even with that, it was clear something was very wrong and Kenma had no idea how to fix it. He felt terrified whenever he thought about it. He didn’t want to bring it up in the event that it made everything still worse, but he couldn’t ignore it either, and so he saw no clear path forward.

The second reason he was grateful for the new guests was because while previously Prince Tobio had hurried in the opposite direction as soon as glimpsing Kenma, after the sparring practice he was almost constantly underfoot, staring intensely and saying nothing.

It was extremely unsettling, and made Kenma think wistfully back to the mutual avoidance of only a few days previous.

When the other delegations began to arrive, Kenma hoped at least that Tobio would have new people to distract him and would, by consequence, leave Kenma alone.

Dateko and Nohebi, having the shortest distance to travel, arrived first.

Kenma was sitting with Shouyou and Tobio beneath one of the trees in the gardens when they did, while Kenma tried to read and Shouyou chattered away about the young dragon Tanaka’s sister swore she had seen on Karasuno’s eastern border just before they left for Nekoma.

He cut a fat golden-red apple into slices while he talked, continuing to press them into Kenma’s hand no matter how many times Kenma tried to tell him he wasn’t hungry.

Tobio wasn’t talking at all, just alternately staring off into space and snapping at Shouyou. The last time it happened, Shouyou sighed and leaned over to hand him a piece of the apple. This gesture somehow managed to startle Tobio into silence while he gazed down at it as if he had never seen fruit before.

“It was red,” Shouyou went on, and Kenma gave up on reading the same paragraph for the eighth time and closed his book with a sigh. “What was red?”

“The dragon,” Shouyou said urgently. He spit out seeds. “Saeko says she’s going to go find it and tame it, but Ryuu told her no one’s been able to do that in a thousand years, and then she told him that was because she hadn’t been around for a thousand years, and pushed him into the moat. I wonder if it would let me fight it.”

“If it would let you--?” Kenma started, before deciding that no feasible continuation of this conversation was likely to be particularly productive and it was better to let it lie.

There was a great ruckus of creaking wood in the distance as the north gate was raised, and then further noises of horses and men and a trumpet sounding. The note was distinctive. Dateko had arrived.

“Why, if it isn’t Hinata Shouyou!” someone called from the steps leading down from the courtyard a few minutes later. “Still small as ever, I see.”

Shouyou scowled fiercely and leapt to his feet, wielding the knife he had been using for cutting apples like a weapon. “I will have you know that I have grown one full centimeter since last we met,” he said boldly as the captain of Dateko’s royal guard approached on foot, “So you may take that back.”

Kenma had forgotten that they would, of course, have met previously -- Dateko had helped to supervise the rebuilding of Karasuno’s capitol the previous summer.

While they had once been on the other side of a war with Karasuno just like Nekoma, Dateko had agreed to peace with Karasuno around the same time.

This had been both out of necessity and, Kenma suspected, because it meant undermining Seijoh.

Futakuchi Kenji, notably, did not take back his comment about Shouyou’s stature. He only continued to smirk in the galling way that had made more than one festive gathering dissolve spectacularly into a vicious scuffle around him.

Kenma noted with some dismay that the member of his company who was normally nearby to drag him back out of whatever scene he had caused unscathed was nowhere to be seen.

As if reading Kenma’s mind, Shouyou piped up, “Is Aone with you?”

He craned his head around eagerly, as if he might somehow have overlooked the towering white-haired knight amidst the shrubs and roses.

Futakuchi’s expression remained obnoxious, but his smile turned more genuine. “Yes, he is,” he said, looking amused. He gestured airily behind him. “He’s supervising the boarding of the horses right now. I am sure he’ll be delighted to see you.”

Kenma, who was not altogether sure that delight was an emotion Aone Takanobu was capable of, was somewhat skeptical. He was also highly startled by Futakuchi’s behavior, as this was the kindest -- or at very least, the least awful -- Kenma had ever seen him act. It seemed that Shouyou had that sort of effect on people.

“Although I can’t fathom why,” Futakuchi added cheerfully, and Kenma thought then again, maybe not.

“I’m going to go and find him,” Shouyou announced, and took off like a loosed arrow in precisely the wrong direction before Kenma could blink, or call him back. He supposed odds were he would find the stables eventually by sheer luck.

Tobio glanced between Kenma and Futakuchi, stuffed his piece of apple into his mouth, and immediately followed after.

“Prince Kenma,” Futakuchi said, and winked before bowing with a great deal of unnecessary flourish. Kenma rolled his eyes and got to his feet, brushing off his clothes. “It is a pleasure to have you back in our halls, Futakuchi,” he said dryly, offering the appropriate formal greeting for the situation.

Futakuchi gave a very white smile. “Do you know, I almost believed you that time,” he said, tipping his head to one side in a studied sort of way, so that his chestnut hair spilled more artfully over his brow. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I must be growing on you.”

A servant came up, panting. “The delegation from Dateko has arrived,” he informed Kenma, bowing deeply.

Kenma felt that someone else had also arrived, and didn’t have to turn to see who it was before Kuroo said solemnly beside him, “Thank you. That had escaped our notice.”

“Did you forget your better half somewhere?” Kuroo asked Futakuchi, as soon as the servant was gone. He feigned a look of deep concern. “Oh dear. Don’t tell me he finally ran away.”

“I see you’re still not married, Tetsurou,” Kenji said with a sharp smile. “How sad. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and get settled in.”

“I’ll take you to the steward, he’ll escort you to your rooms,” Kuroo said genially.

“I do so love when we have visitors,” he ducked his head to murmur in Kenma’s ear on his way past, and Kenma had to work to hide a smile.

As there were now Dateko knights in blue-green and white all over the place, Kenma thought it was an excellent time to disappear to the library. He had only made it to the hallway when he heard “Your highness,” from behind him. “The delegation--”

“I have already been advised that the delegation from Dateko is here,” Kenma said, waving a hand to dismiss the servant without looking back. “Thank you.”

“The delegation from Nohebi is here,” said a different voice, and Kenma stiffened. He turned around reluctantly, hugging his book close to his chest.

“Prince Kenma,” said Prince Daishou Suguru of Nohebi, bowing beautifully. “It has been a long time.”

It had been no more than a year. It could have been much longer if Kenma had had his way. “Prince Daishou,” he said, refusing to mimic the informality, as the servant who had announced Nohebi’s arrival hurried off again. He inclined his head. “Welcome back to Nekoma.”

Daishou had grown up handsome and angular, green eyes glittering above the darker green of his doublet.

“That isn’t quite the warmest welcome,” he noted, looking crestfallen. “I daresay it is true what they say about Nekoma; you all have nine lives, and will not let go of a grudge even if you live through them all.”

“Is that what they say?” Kenma asked, blinking. “I daresay they are giving us far too much credit, to remember things as long as that.”

Daishou and his family had visited a few times every year as a matter of state when he and Kenma were children. He had been gangly and easily annoyed then. Now, at least, he had learned to hide that annoyance better.

Back then he had complained of boredom when Kenma wanted to read in the library as opposed to coming outside to play in the orchard with him and Kuroo, and had coaxed and wheedled until Kenma had reluctantly let himself be dragged out into the sunlight.

He was trying to make an effort, at his father’s behest, since at that time they had still been engaged.

As they grew older, though, those visits had lapsed and, after the events of the summer three years past, ceased almost entirely.

Daishou came closer. His expression was breathtakingly sincere. “I would so like for us to be friends again,” he said. Every hair on the back of Kenma’s neck stood on end.

Kenma did not point out that they had never particularly been friends, and thought this was very polite of him. Instead he said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Have we not been, all this time?”

Daishou reached out and tested a strand of Kenma’s hair between two of his fingers. The action was so incongruous, so unexpected, that instead of stopping him Kenma froze.

“Your hair’s gotten longer since we last met,” Daishou said with a small smile, holding Kenma’s gaze. The green was almost hypnotic. He tucked the lock of hair back behind Kenma’s ear, fingers lingering there. “You can’t see your eyes.”

Kenma was about to ask him flatly what on earth he was doing, but did not end up having the chance.

The slight widening of Daishou’s own eyes was the only warning Kenma had before someone growled behind him, “Move your arm, or I swear on our gods or yours, I will move it for you.”

Taketora -- who Kenma recalled was supposed to be posted at the other end of the palace, in the southern wing -- shouldered his way in between Daishou and Kenma, forcing Daishou to drop his hand from Kenma’s face and step back.

Tora was radiating a dangerous energy. One hand was clenched into a fist at his side, and the other reached back to rest on Kenma’s shoulder, squeezing once in a clear gesture of reassurance.

Kenma fought back the nearly unrestrainable urge to curse loudly.

Now, of course, seconds too late, it was all very clear.

He had been momentarily thrown by Daishou’s actions, and his surprise had given Daishou exactly the opening he had been waiting for -- the opening which, now that Kenma thought about their convenient placement in the middle of the main hallway, Daishou had likely carefully crafted.

Daishou had shown little enough interest in Kenma even when he was obligated to, and everyone who listened to gossip -- which Kenma didn’t, but often heard anyway because Kuroo avidly did -- knew he had sworn his heart to the daughter of Nohebi’s master at arms years ago.

There was no reason whatsoever for him to imply any differently now, unless it was to a purpose. That purpose had been thrown into stark relief by Tora’s sudden intervention, and only became more obvious with Daishou’s reaction.

“I meant no offense,” Daishou said, eyes widening in perfect innocence. He looked shocked by being thusly confronted, so convincingly that Kenma knew he had to have practiced. He put a hand to his heart, golden rings glittering in the sunlight. “I’m terribly sorry if there has been a misunderstanding. I was simply greeting an old friend.”

He was good with an audience, as he always had been; the nobles walking by them visibly frowned at Tora’s aggressive stance, at Daishou’s delicate fright.

They were no doubt appalled that a soldier would be so uncouth as to behave in such a manner towards any member of a visiting royal family, let alone one as famously polite and charming as the crown prince of Nohebi.

Tora and Daishou were very nearly the same height, and yet Daishou somehow managed to make it appear as if he was being towered over. It was a masterful performance.

Moreso, it was a trap, and having already sprung it Tora was now only ensnaring himself still

further. He even advanced a step in warning, allowing for a flicker of fear to play over Daishou’s face.

Kenma had to hiss, “Yamamoto!” to check his movement. He wanted to take hold of his cape and jerk him back, and then strangle him with it, but in terms of appearances that would likely have only made things worse.

Tora looked back, expression open and questioning. Over his shoulder, where he couldn’t see, Daishou smiled, sharp like a knife.

Kenma held his gaze.

He felt steadier than he had than the last time they met, but it was still hard to feel entirely normal, standing so near someone whose family had tried to have him killed.

*

Nohebi was their neighbor, directly across the brutal terrain of the Dateko mountains. Their neighbor and their ally, but not their friend.

In earlier days they had been. Back then they were as prosperous as Nekoma, but their luck had turned and then turned worse. Two harvests failed, and then the sickness came -- the same sickness that had swept through Nekoma, only Nohebi was far worse prepared at the onset.

They had turned to Nekoma for help, and Nekoma had given it. They had taken Nohebi on as a territory.

Things had truly gone badly once the old king had died and his son took charge. King Daishou Orochi had different ideas than his father. He had bristled at ruling under Nekoma’s governance, had ordered the red and black banners in the royal city torn down to be replaced with the green and gold of older times.

The assassination attempt had been made the summer when Kenma was fifteen and Kuroo sixteen, the year before Kuroo had been appointed the youngest captain of the guard in Nekoma’s history.

It was the hottest summer Kenma could remember, before or since. There was barely a breeze most afternoons; the guards were in half armor at their posts to avoid overheating and Kenma had taken to sleeping with all the windows open and his bedclothes kicked off. It was like slowly suffocating.

Kenma had been in his room when it happened, lying on his stomach on the bed reading instead of participating in his scheduled mathematics lesson downstairs.

The king had threatened to take his books away if he missed another, and while Kenma didn’t doubt him -- his father didn’t make empty threats -- he despised mathematics and had enough books hidden about his room that he was willing to risk it.

The door from the hall slammed open and the resulting draft fluttered the pages of Kenma’s book, losing his place. He made an annoyed sound and looked up, preparing to explain to whomever it was that he had lost track of time entirely and was very sorry to have missed his lesson.

The lie died on his tongue at the sight of Kuroo, chest heaving and eyes wide, outfitted in his practice gear with a real sword in one hand. There was blood on his face, and on his hands.

“You’re here—oh thank—I’d thought,” he said, and sagged back against the open door, looking as relieved as if the mundane sight of Kenma reading was somehow spectacular.

Kenma didn’t get to hear what he’d thought because there came the sound of running and yelling in the hallway, and he sat bolt upright.

Something was wrong, it had already been obvious but the fear that flickered across Kuroo’s face at the noise snapped him out of his shock.

Kuroo had flung the door shut behind him and dragged Kenma’s desk in front of it, then held out his hand and said, “Follow me.”

Without question, Kenma did.

There was a trapdoor set into the stone of Kenma’s floor, and Kuroo kicked aside the rug and Kenma helped him lift the heavy door long enough for them both to climb down the ladder into the passageway that led out below the palace, all the way past the outer walls and into the orchard.

It was part of the network of passages that had once connected to the hedge maze. This was an escape route they had practiced many times before, although never for so serious a reason.

“My father,” Kenma had whispered into the blackness as Kuroo helped him down the last few rungs of the ladder and set him on his feet. He felt numb. “The Queen? Where is Lev?”

“Yaku has Lev,” Kuroo said. Kenma could barely see him in the dark, but his breathing was labored, and Kenma thought there was something odd about his stride once they began walking. “They were in the kitchens when the alarm sounded, they’re there now with most of the servants. The King and Queen are safe in the throne room; Nekomata and Naoi are with them.”

“And the others?” Kenma asked. “Kai? Shouhei and Tora? Inuoka?”

There was a moment of silence, and then, “I don’t know,” Kuroo said. It sounded like he had to force the words out, and was obvious how much he hated saying them. “I couldn’t find them. I didn’t have time.”

Kenma was distracted from this when Kuroo staggered a step. Kenma was sticking close enough to his side that he didn’t miss it.

“You’re hurt,” Kenma said. He had suspected before. Now he was certain. A new terror wrapped icy fingers around Kenma’s heart. When Kuroo had burst into his room, Kenma had assumed that the blood on him wasn’t his own. It was now very clear he had been wrong.

“It’s nothing,” Kuroo said, and Kenma said sharply, “Stop.”

When Kuroo did, he reached out to press a palm to Kuroo’s left side, and heard the pained hitch in his breathing. His hand came away wet with blood.

“It looks worse than it is,” Kuroo said, which was no comfort at all because Kenma couldn’t even see him and could still tell how bad it was.

Kuroo took Kenma’s hand, smearing blood between them, and pulled him onwards. “We have to keep moving,” he said. “The men who attacked us were told exactly where to go to find the royal family, by someone who knew the palace and all of your routines intimately. They may know about this passage too.”

“They knew where to go?” Kenma said, and realized the obvious, minutes too late. “Then...my tutor…”

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo said. Kenma’s eyes were adjusting to the dark, and he could make out Kuroo’s outline as he shook his head. “I wasn’t in time. If you had been there, like you were supposed to be…” he trailed off, and Kenma couldn’t see him clearly but he could feel the tension running through him like a living thing where their hands were joined.

“I thought I was too late,” was all he said, at last, and then nothing else for some time.

They had walked through the dark for what felt like a mile. The stone around them was thick enough that Kenma could hear nothing at all from above, no indication of what was happening in the palace or whether peace had been restored.

It was one of the worst half-hours of his life.

When finally they neared the end of the passage, voices were audible, and then the scrape of stone on metal as someone cleared rocks from the rusted grate of the hidden entrance. The voices grew louder and the light brighter, and Kuroo pushed Kenma behind him, teeth gritted.

In the light Kenma saw the blood on him again, realized in horror that he wasn’t even wearing his full armor as protection. He wondered just how much fighting Kuroo had had to do to get to his chambers before anyone else.

A figure loomed up in the passage opening, and then Kenma heard “Thank the gods,” in a voice that was ragged and choked-off but blessedly familiar, and the silhouette resolved itself into Tora, who dropped his sword and tiger’s head shield into the dirt without ceremony and embraced Kuroo and Kenma together, fiercely.

He said again, muffled into Kuroo’s shoulder, “Thank the gods, you’re both all right.”

“He’s hurt,” Kenma said immediately, and Kuroo had said again, “It’s nothing,” even though now in the light Kenma could see how pale he was, and how his teeth were clenched against the pain. “Is everyone safe?”

Kuroo had only consented to be handed over to the physician’s care once they were back in the palace and Kenma, exhausted and at the end of his patience, burst into tears and demanded that he do so, and only then because the display had drawn Queen Koshka’s attention and she had been horrified to realize that Kuroo was injured and had said nothing.

She and Kenma’s father had been ambushed over their breakfast by two men disguised as servants.

Fortunately the men had underestimated both Takeshi, who never kept a sword far from hand, and Nekomata, who was quite old but -- as he had proved -- not too old to remind them he had been the king’s champion back in his day.

Lev, it turned out, had been shirking his lessons just like Kenma. He had gotten distracted, as he so often did, and went instead to follow one of the palace strays into the kitchens.

Yaku found the crown prince on hands and knees trying to tempt a fat white cat with a piece of fish and had been berating him to within an inch of his life when a maid screamed and ran in, terrified, to tell everyone that one of the guards had been murdered outside.

Yaku had immediately told everyone to block the doors, and had secured every entrance himself. He had saved all of them without even unsheathing his sword.

All told, ten of the guards had been killed, and one was missing. Takeshi had figured out which, and, after a bit of digging through his quarters, discovered letters bearing the Nohebi stamp and seal.

His father had been born and raised in Nohebi before he was killed by thieves only last year, it transpired. He was young. It would not have taken much, Takeshi told Kenma later, to make him blame Nekoma for it, and less to convince him to take vengeance by assisting with a coup.

In response, Takeshi had sent the entire reserve army through the mountains the same night, before word could even come back to Nohebi that their plan had failed.

Nekoma had taken the capitol easily. The king had begged ignorance, had made promise after promise that he would never have allowed such a plan to continue, had he known of it. He had been as contrite and horrified as anyone could imagine.

Takeshi had allowed him and his family to live, and to continue ruling under Nekoma’s protection.

Kenma had asked him why.

“So you believe him?” he had asked, many days afterwards. “King Orochi?”

“Not one word he has ever spoken,” his father had said. He was writing a letter by candlelight. “Those men could never have gotten as far as they did without support from high within the ranks. If it wasn’t the king, it was someone close to him.”

He folded the parchment up and dripped wax onto it to seal the words inside. “But our point has been made,” he said, gaze steady as he looked back at Kenma. “Nohebi knows they cannot stand against us now, and they will not try again for some time. I will not decimate a kingdom for their king’s treachery, and I will never resort to war unless I have exhausted all other options.”

Kenma knew he was right. The citizens of Nohebi likely did not always agree with their king’s decisions, and even if they did they certainly could not be held accountable for them, just as Daishou was not any more responsible for his father’s actions than Lev or Kenma were for Takeshi’s.

But King Orochi had tried to kill his family and they had hurt Kuroo, and Kenma found that logic aside, he still bristled in later days when he saw a flash of the telltale green and gold in the marketplace, or a letter bearing the seal of a coiled snake.

For his part Kuroo had been bandaged up and given a draught to make him sleep, and had spent the better part of the night and following day unconscious.

Kenma had passed the entirety of that time with him, curled up in a chair at his bedside and watching him intently to make sure he was breathing. His father had made a point of how unnecessary this was, as Kuroo was expected to make a full recovery, and therefore Kenma would have to come to dinner as usual.

But Kenma had not been summoned to dinner after all, and was fairly sure the queen had overruled him.

“You should be proud, Nekomata,” Kenma had overheard his father telling the old swordmaster in hushed tones out in the hallway, the first night. “You taught Kuroo well. Him and Yaku both. I owe them my sons’ lives.” The room was dark. Kenma had just woken for the dozenth time out of uneasy dreams to hear their voices. His eyes went to Kuroo first, on instinct.

He was still asleep, Kenma could see from the moonlight spilling in through the window. His face was paler than normal, and there were dark shadows like smudges beneath his eyes.

He had lost a good deal of blood, the physician had said. But the blade was not poisoned, as Nohebi’s weapons often were, and he just needed rest. “I didn’t teach him that well,” Nekomata said. Takeshi laughed quietly, a rare sound.

“It’s not like you to be humble.” Nekomata shook his head. It was one of the few times Kenma had seen him look his age. “I assure you, I’m not. Tetsurou is a fine knight. Better than most. When he is grown, I have no doubt he will be a legend just like Katsumi. But now?”

Nekomata’s silhouette turned, and Kenma could tell he was looking in at them in the dim room. It was unlikely he could see them in the dark, but Kenma closed his eyes and feigned sleep just in case.

“He is sixteen years old, Takeshi,” Nekomata said softly. “It has only been a few months since his trials, and the men sent by Nohebi were trained soldiers. I don’t think he was able to defeat them because he was better. I believe he was just that desperate to save his friends.”

It wasn’t until Kuroo was finally awake the following night and Kenma was made to go back to his own bed to sleep that he saw the blood that had not yet been entirely scrubbed clean in the hallway outside his rooms, and realized how close the men sent had gotten, indeed. It was after that that Kenma had started taking his training much more seriously. He couldn’t not: he felt sick with guilt every time he got a glimpse of the healing scar across Kuroo’s abdomen, the reminder of when he had risked his life to protect Kenma because Kenma couldn’t protect himself.

That would never happen again, Kenma had decided then. He would do everything he possibly could to ensure it.

*

“What is going on?”

And here was Kuroo now, in the present, back from his search for the steward.

Kenma saw the way his expression of concern morphed into one of resignation at the tableau before him, connecting Daishou’s presence easily with Tora’s anger, but by the time he joined them he had schooled his features into a pleasant smile, as if nothing at all was amiss.

“Taketora, for goodness’ sake, do stop being so rude to our guest,” Kuroo said. He put a hand on Tora’s shoulder, succeeding in pulling him back a step without making it appear that he was dragging him. He inclined his head in a bow in the same movement. “How was your journey, Your Highness?”

Despite the palpable tension in the air, he was the very picture of courtesy. Partly because he always was, when he needed to be, and partly because, for no satisfactory reason Kenma had ever been able to wrest from him, he held far less of a grudge against Nohebi than anyone else in Nekoma.

Daishou smiled warmly. It did not touch his eyes. “It was uneventful, thank you for asking.”

“Splendid,” Kuroo said. “Shall I have someone show you to your rooms?”

“No need, I know where they are,” Daishou said. “I apologize again for whatever I did to warrant your knight’s displeasure,” he added, words pitched loudly enough to be heard by anyone passing by. “It was lovely to see you again, Prince Kenma.”

He turned to go, and as he did so Kenma saw a very different sort of smile curve his lips.

You don’t have to be your father, Kenma wanted to tell him. You can be a better king. Things could be different.

“Are you alright?” Tora demanded once the prince of Nohebi was out of sight, turning to Kenma. He took hold of his shoulders, examining him carefully as if he might somehow have overlooked a terrible wound. “Did he do anything?”

“He’s fine, Taketora,” Kuroo said, in a tone which suggested that all parties would not be, presently.

“I’m fine,” Kenma confirmed. He felt tired, now that the tension from Daishou’s sudden appearance had drained away. “Tora, you always overreact to everything. Or did you think he was going to stab me through the heart in the middle of the courtyard?”

He couldn’t deny that Daishou was far from his favorite person, or that he resented his proximity whether or not it was part of an elaborate pantomime, but there was far more at stake here than dislike, which Tora did not seem to have yet realized.

He was certainly about to.

“Tell me,” Kuroo said, rounding on Tora, eyes gleaming. “When I spoke with everyone just this morning about being on our best behavior and not allowing Nohebi one single opportunity to claim we have been inhospitable, did you assume I was not addressing you in particular or were you simply not listening?”

“He was being untoward,” Tora said stubbornly. “Was I meant to allow it?”

“Yes,” Kenma said, before Kuroo could. “Kuroo…”

Kuroo held up a hand. “I’m changing the assignments now,” he said, echoing Kenma’s thoughts. “I’ll make sure he isn’t posted anywhere near the western wing for the duration of Daishou’s stay.”

“See to it that either Aone or Futakuchi is with him at all times,” Kenma said.

Kuroo clicked his tongue. “I was going to ask one of the Karasuno knights, but you’re right, an impartial ally is better.”

“Kindly leave off discussing me as if I am not here!” Tora said loudly, looking like a man who had found himself deeply betrayed at every turn. He brandished a finger in the direction Daishou had gone. “In any case, why am I being punished, when he’s the one who—”

“The one who easily goaded you into threatening him within earshot of at least a dozen courtiers,” Kuroo interrupted, slapping his hand down. “All of whom will confirm as much when they are told later tonight, or perhaps later this week, that you attacked him and tried to kill him.”

Tora looked appalled. “I would do no such thing!”

“Of course you wouldn’t. It won’t matter in the slightest,” Kuroo said. “He is royalty. Thanks to the show you put on, the appearance of the situation will not be in your favor. If it came down to it, the king would likely intervene to save you, but overall it is an avoidable mess I would very much like to avoid.”

“You don’t think Daishou would really do that,” Tora said, looking horrified.

Kenma couldn’t be as angry with him as he wanted, and judging by his expression, neither could Kuroo. Tora’s thinking was straightforward and linear; he was all bravery and very little cunning, and that was precisely why Daishou’s trap had worked so neatly.

“I don’t know that he will,” Kuroo conceded. “But judging from past behavior he certainly would, and as far as I am concerned, that is enough.”

“I don’t want to spend time with Futakuchi,” Tora said bitterly.

“Then you shouldn’t have played right into Daishou’s hands,” Kuroo said, without mercy. “Be glad that we love you enough to make you miserable. Now go find the little knight, he’ll know where Aone is.”

“At least this probably means Daishou won’t poison himself this time,” Kenma said, watching Tora go. “Though that did liven things up considerably.”

Kuroo snorted in agreement, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “I’ve told the food tasters to be on their guard just in case.” He dropped his hand, and his gaze settled on Kenma. “And you’re sure you’re alright?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Kenma said, and shrugged. “Or at least, he didn’t mean anything by it. He was only doing it to provoke Tora.”

“I think he was hoping to provoke me instead,” Kuroo said thoughtfully. He looked down the hallway in the direction Daishou had disappeared. “It would have been far more damaging to Nekoma to have the captain of the guard accused of treachery.”

“You suspect a plot against you, and yet you don’t sound upset.”

Kuroo shrugged. “It failed, so there isn’t anything to be upset about. That Tora got involved instead is unfortunate, but I believe we intervened in time to foil any attempt Daishou might make to frame him.”

Kenma sighed. “You’re never as angry with Nohebi as you should be.”

“Should I be?” Kuroo asked. He looked back at Kenma, eyebrows raised. “Daishou is doubtless only doing what he has been told to, and his father is only doing what he thinks he has to, and all of that is because of us.”

“We helped them,” Kenma said flatly. It was not the first time they had had this conversation, and it never changed, which in turn never failed to frustrate him.

“It could just as easily have been Nekoma who lost everything, if not for luck,” Kuroo said, with that same infuriating calm. “I don’t know how gracefully we would have accepted the state of things, if our places were exchanged.”

“Only you would defend people who did their best to kill you,” Kenma said, rolling his eyes.

“It’s because I am exceptionally pure of heart,” Kuroo said solemnly, and Kenma grimaced at him.

“Anyway, whether or not the whole thing was for your benefit, your timing was fortunate,” Kenma said to change the subject, and shook his head. Daishou had either underestimated Kuroo or misunderstood him entirely. “But he’s known you for years. He should know by now, it would never have worked.”

“Of course not,” Kuroo said, after a moment’s pause.

Kenma was startled by the brush of fingers over his jawline, touching his hair in almost the same way Daishou had. It felt very different, somehow. Kenma didn’t even think to flinch away.

Then his hair fell comfortingly back into his peripheral vision, and he realized. Kuroo had freed the lock of hair Daishou had tucked back.

Kenma looked up at him, meaning to ask what he was doing, but was distracted by the contemplative look on Kuroo’s face. “I’m sorry you have to wear it,” he said after a moment, tapping the wrought gold circlet at Kenma’s brow. “I know how you hate it.”

Kenma had told him, years ago, how he didn’t like the crown because it kept his hair off his face and he had nothing to hide behind. He never wore it in Nekoma if he could help it, and abroad only because he had to, for ceremony.

“I’m surprised you remember that,” he said. He felt oddly self-conscious, the way he rarely did with Kuroo. He must have still been off-balance from the confrontation with Daishou.

“I remember everything you tell me,” Kuroo said easily. “Now, can you keep yourself out of trouble for half an hour while I make sure all our beloved guests are settled?”

Kenma gave him a baleful look. “I will not dignify that with an answer.”

“Excellent,” Kuroo said. “Then if you will excuse me, I have to find someone to locate and denude several ducks. Futakuchi is insisting that he has not been provided with a suitable number of pillows.”

He smiled, a real smile, and Kenma felt the knot in his chest loosen slightly.

Perhaps things would be alright again, after all.

Chapter Text

Kenma found, suddenly, that he was never alone in the library.

Usually, despite it being open to everyone, he had it to himself. Tora or Kuroo might come in to bother him while he was trying to read, or retrieve him for some practice or game or another, but of the other knights only Shouhei came in regularly to study.

Most of the others simply did not have the time -- all of their lessons had ended after they were sworn in as full-fledged knights of Nekoma -- and Tora had, proudly, never opened a book in his life.

Now, though, it was almost never empty. Many of the visiting knights passed through to look around or to sit awhile, and Sawamura and Azumane in particular could often be found reading quietly at one of the tables during times when they were not needed for negotiations or sparring.

Daishou passed through occasionally, and so did Aone; unfortunately, Futakuchi was often with him and on the most recent occasion had -- for no reason at all that Kenma could discern -- managed to convince Sawamura that he did not understand how to read a map of Karasuno.

The charade had lasted for nearly a quarter hour, while Sawamura had gotten more and more visibly frustrated attempting to politely explain north from south, until Aone had returned, book in hand and expression resigned, to retrieve his partner.

“I don’t understand it at all,” Tora muttered to Kenma in an undertone over dinner that evening.

He watched with a furrowed brow while, across the hall at one of the other long tables, Aone stood up wordlessly and made one of the other Dateko knights, spluttering furiously, exchange seats with him so he could separate him from a smirking Futakuchi.

“Don’t understand what?” Kenma asked, poking at his pie.

“Why would Aone have married him?”

“People say that to Shouhei about you all the time, you know,” Kenma said, and Tora said, outraged, “They do not!”

“They do,” Kenma said unapologetically, and moved his hand swiftly off the table so that when Tora tried to slap it, he hit only wood. He heard Kuroo sigh next to him.

“You don’t know?” Shouhei asked from Tora’s other side, blinking at him. “Kenji was involved in a scandal with a servant a few years ago.”

“And?” Tora asked, rubbing his hand and still looking deeply affronted by Kenma’s remark. Kenma rolled his eyes. “That sort of thing is not treated kindly in Dateko,” he told Tora.

Across the hall, Aone had twisted to entirely block Futakuchi from the other knight’s view and was chewing as if nothing at all was amiss, expression unchanged. “They still hold to all their old codes. His prospects would have been ruined.”

“They were,” Shouhei said, picking apart his bread. “His family doesn’t come from money. Takanobu made an offer of marriage despite everything, as a kindness. The Aones are one of the oldest bloodlines in the kingdom, and very well-respected.”

Kenma wondered if that was a sad thing for either of them. That Futakuchi couldn’t marry the servant even if he had wanted to, and that Aone no longer had the opportunity to marry for love.

Still, he thought neither of them seemed to mind too much. And there were perhaps far worse things than marrying a friend.

And then, he considered later, sitting up on the window seat in his room looking out over the gardens, where Dateko were heading back to their rooms, maybe it wasn’t that black and white.

Futakuchi was walking behind Aone, laughing at something, and Aone stopped to wait for him to catch up. They both cast long shadows across the grass in the light from the hall behind them.

As he drew level Futakuchi asked him something Kenma couldn’t hear, mocking expression suggesting he was waiting for an admonishment, but instead Aone regarded him for a moment in silence and then leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead.

Futakuchi was very still for several seconds, startled, and then he leaned into him, wrapping his arms around Aone’s waist and resting his head against Aone’s chest. Aone’s hand came up to thread fingers through his hair and hold him there.

It was both striking and unremarkable, somehow, and they stayed like that for a long moment, swaying slightly in the fading light, before carrying on the way they had been going.

*****

The next morning, when Kenma entered the library, it was to find the blond knight and the freckled knight from Karasuno, whom Kenma had not once seen in the others’ company or outside each other’s since they arrived, occupying two velvet armchairs beneath the rose window.

The one with spectacles -- Tsukishima Kei, Kenma remembered from the heraldry lists he had studied -- was reading. An older volume, one of the histories. The other, Yamaguchi Tadashi, was dozing with a book open on his lap.

Neither of them seemed to mind or even notice Kenma’s presence, and so he settled in at a table with a book borrowed from Queen Koshka.

It was a half-translated account of the mythology of Izhevsk’s founding, which -- as far as Kenma could tell from the parts he could read, and the clarifying marginalia in the queen’s neat handwriting -- involved a hero who could transform any object to gold falling in love with a faerie who could dance anyone to madness.

Kenma was abruptly pulled out of the story when Yamaguchi snorted in his sleep, woke himself up, and jerked upright, knocking the book on his lap to the ground. It landed facedown with a soft thud on the stone floor. “Sorry, sorry,” he whispered, lunging to retrieve it.

Tsukishima had looked up as if broken from a reverie, and now said mildly, “It’s all right.”

“Sorry,” Yamaguchi said again, rearranging himself back in the armchair. Tsukishima made a noise of acknowledgment, but it was clear Yamaguchi was going to say something else. Tsukishima sighed and said, “Quiet,” in an undertone. He indicated Kenma with his book. “People are trying to read.”

Yamaguchi fell silent, looking guilty and inclined to still further apology. But then Tsukishima caught his hand where it was dangling over the side of the armchair and raised it to his lips, pressing his mouth softly to the inside of Yamaguchi’s wrist. “You’re fine,” he murmured. “Now sit still.”

Yamaguchi blushed down to the roots of his hair, and Kenma looked away immediately. It was far too intimate a moment for him to be witnessing, somehow, even in a public space.

It was, thankfully, disrupted mere seconds later by the door to the library slamming open, and then a loud, “Tsukishima!”

“He isn’t here,” Tsukishima answered without looking up.

Shouyou bounded in and made a face at him. “Come on, then, Kuroo said he would help us practice this morning!” He glanced around and beamed, waving vigorously. “Oh, hello, Kenma!”

“Hello,” Kenma said. “You’re practicing with Kuroo?”

“Oh, yes! He promised. Would you like to come too?”

“No, thank you,” said Kenma, who enjoyed spending time with Shouyou but would rather suffer a slow death than spar in the morning, or really anytime, when he didn’t otherwise have to.

Tsukishima seemed of a like mind. “Why on earth would I do that?” he asked loftily, although next to him Yamaguchi had sat up and appeared interested.

Shouyou’s expression suggested this should be very obvious. “Don’t you want to be able to fight?”

“I can fight,” Tsukishima said, turning a page and somehow managing to make the simple act look disdainful. “I am a knight, although since you are also a knight, I can see how one might think the requirements somewhat lax.”

“I know you can fight, but don’t you want to be able to fight your best?” Shouyou demanded.

“No,” Tsukishima said blandly. “I hope to die in battle. Imminently.”

The doors crashed open yet again, and everyone looked up. This time, it was Tora. “Kenma,” he said, expression tense, and Kenma didn’t ask what was the matter. He just got up and followed Tora out to the hallway, where Shouhei, Yaku, Kai, Inuoka, Shibayama, and Lev were all gathered already. Kuroo was the only one missing.

“Something has happened,” Kenma said, looking from one grim face to the next and reading the answer there. They each had assigned posts every hour, and for them all to have left them at once meant nothing good. “Shiratorizawa?”

“We’ve received a formal declaration of enmity from King Ushijima,” Tora said. His lip curled in disgust. “It was delivered to your father by messenger early this morning, according to one of the serving girls. It’s all over the palace now.”

“As we have allied with Karasuno, they claim they are well within their rights to wage war against us both, and will await our surrender by courier until the end of the fortnight,” Shibayama said, looking from one of them to the other. It sounded like he was reciting something one of the others had said.

He was fidgeting awfully, the way he always did when he was anxious. Kai touched a hand to the small of his back, in a calming gesture.

“They would have done this anyway,” Kenma told him. “Karasuno has nothing to do with it.”

Kai nodded, mouth set. “King Ushijima means to take everything, from the mountains to the sea,” he said. “I am sure he does not expect us to believe otherwise. The treaty just provided a neat excuse for him to act earlier than he might have.”

“The mountains to the sea,” Shouhei repeated quietly, looking calm but pale. “Do you think he’ll succeed?”

“Not if we have anything to say about it, nor Dateko, nor Fukurodani,” Tora said confidently. He squeezed Shouhei’s side and found his hand, tangling their fingers together. “There’s a long way yet between us and Shiratorizawa.”

“Between us, but not our friends,” Yaku said. Tora gave him a despairing look, and he only shook his head, brown eyes hard. “I’m sorry, but you know it’s true. Dateko has been reinforcing their southern wall for months. Fukurodani is readying for a siege. They’re running out of time.”

Kenma thought about the conversation he had overheard between Kuroo and his father, only a few nights ago.

If Seijoh fell, there was not such a long way between them and Shiratorizawa after all.

“Kenma, Kuroo should know about the letter,” Inuoka said, eyes wide. “It’s his morning off and he isn’t on watch for another hour, so odds are no one has told him. That’s what we came to see you about.”

Kenma nodded. He turned to go, back up the stairs to Kuroo’s rooms, but Yaku clicked his tongue and so he looked back.

Yaku indicated the opposite direction, expression wry. “The delegation from Fukurodani arrived late last night. They were put up in the east wing.”

“Right,” Kenma said. With some resignation he mentally restructured his day to include being picked up at least once. Hopefully once at most, but you could never say for sure.

He heard Lev ask behind him, loudly, “What has Fukurodani to do with where Kuroo is?” and when he looked back saw very clearly over Lev’s shoulder the heroic struggle Yaku was having not to slap the crown prince in the back of the head.

*

Fukurodani were always put up in the same rooms, nearest the gardens. Kenma rapped on the door to the largest suite and had to wait only seconds before it was flung open inwards and a beaming, silver-haired young man in an undone shirt trailing laces boomed, “Kozume Kenma!”

“Welcome back to Nekoma, Bokuto Koutarou,” Kenma said dryly. He surrendered himself to be embraced heartily and swept into the room.

From his vantage point pinned under Bokuto’s arm, Kenma was unsurprised to see that despite arriving only the previous evening, the visiting prince had already rendered his suites an absolute disaster.

Discarded garments were everywhere, the table was strewn with half-rolled parchment plans, and it seemed Bokuto had coerced one of the servants into bringing him half the pantry because it was now spread out over his writing desk; an array of pastries and fruits jumbled amongst the inkwells and papers.

Kuroo was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed pulling on his shirt, and he tsked when he saw Kenma. “Bokuto,” he said, “let the royal prince go before you suffocate him and I have to execute you for conspiring against the crown.”

“I would never!” Bokuto declared, in a tone of sheer horror. He did release Kenma, however, who gratefully took several steps out of arm’s reach, closer to Kuroo.

“Then there would be a war, and I am far too fond of you cats for that.” Bokuto clapped a hand over his heart, staring off into the middle distance. “It would shatter my heart to have to defeat you in battle, although of course I can and would. With a good deal of glory. Songs would be written.”

Kuroo snorted loudly. He ruffled Kenma’s hair and offered up a smile, softer than normal from sleep. “Good morning. Do you need me?”

“Good morning. My father needs you,” Kenma corrected, making a face and flattening down his hair again. “Or he will presently. We received a message from Shiratorizawa.”

“Full of good tidings, I’m sure?” Kuroo asked, looking at once more awake and less relaxed.

“Oh, yes. They sent their apologies for the whole affair, along with a white flag of surrender.”

Kuroo’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Give me just a moment,” he said.

“Kenma,” Bokuto said gravely from the desk, where he was now inspecting and discarding several fruits. “Have you seen my royal guard?”

“Your royal guard is posted precisely where they are supposed to be and have been for the past hour, while you overslept,” Akaashi Keiji, the captain of Fukurodani’s royal guard, spoke from the open doorway.

Bokuto yelped and dropped a pear.

“I have been awake for hours!” he said defensively, once he had recovered from his surprise and retrieved the pear from the floor. “I was strategizing!”

Akaashi looked at him, and then at Kuroo. “Mmm,” was all he said.

“We have been strategizing!” Bokuto insisted, looking outraged at his captain’s skepticism. “I will show you! Tetsurou, where are the plans?”

“Under the cheese,” Kuroo said. He was casting about for his boots. Kenma saw one peeking out from under the bed and handed it to him.

“Our apologies for arriving late,” Bokuto said over one shoulder to Kenma as he began unearthing the plans from beneath the cheese. “I hope we haven’t missed all the festivities.”

“The wedding isn’t for two days,” Kenma pointed out.

“He means all the feasting,” Kuroo said.

“Yes, the festivities,” Bokuto said, distractedly. “Which is--no, not this--aha! This one!” He withdrew a map and held it out to Akaashi with a flourish. “We have reordered the southern line to better utilize the river, and all before breakfast.”

Kenma remembered with a twist of his gut what Yaku had said only minutes ago. Between us, but not our friends.

Fukurodani was right on Shiratorizawa’s border, just like Seijoh. Nekoma had half the Dateko mountains and all of Fukurodani’s territory standing between them and King Ushijima. Fukurodani had nothing but a forest and the Arakawa river.

Bokuto was acting as cheerful as he almost always did, but Kenma was reminded with painful clarity, looking at the map he was so proudly displaying, that his kingdom had been living in the shadow of war for months.

“Before you go, I almost forgot,” Bokuto said, turning back from Akaashi to address Kenma and Kuroo. “Have either of you heard anything about a rogue knight passing through your territory? He crossed the Edo two nights ago and we lost track of him. He bore no colors and no shield.”

“We think something’s the matter with him,” Akaashi explained, in answer to Kenma’s questioning look. “He was acting...not right. More like a rabid animal than anything. He ran as soon as he spotted us, but not before he nearly killed the one of our men unlucky enough to surprise him.”

That, at least, explained the hour at which Fukurodani had arrived, if they had been put behind schedule by an attack on the road.

Kenma looked to Kuroo, who shook his head, frowning. “All our men are accounted for, and Dateko and Karasuno haven’t mentioned any of theirs having gone missing.”

“Nohebi?” Kenma suggested.

“If it was, you can be sure they wouldn’t admit it,” Kuroo said dryly.

“Ah, well,” Bokuto said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I have men searching, but under the circumstances it can’t be a priority. I just thought I would ask.”

Kuroo finished getting dressed and ran a hand through his hair in a hopeless attempt to tidy it. “I’ll mention it to the king if I can,” he promised.

He was almost out the door when he tsked and turned back, hanging off the doorjamb. “I told Shouyou I would spar with them,” he told Kenma, looking aggrieved. “I won’t be there for an hour at least, after this. Apologize to him, won’t you?”

Kenma raised his eyebrows and looked significantly at Bokuto, and Kuroo’s eyes lit up. “Say, Bokuto, do you want to be a hero to some young knights?”

Bokuto drew himself up to his fullest height and said, with great feeling, “It would be my honor.”

*

True to Kuroo’s word, Shouyou almost fainted from excitement when he realized who had accompanied Kenma to the practice grounds.

“The Owl Prince!” he all but shouted, dropping his sword. His eyes were round as saucers. “I had heard you were down in the south, out in the encampments on the front lines!”

Bokuto looked delighted to have his whereabouts so well noted. “We were,” he said. “We have been traveling the border for many weeks, making sure our defense is secure. Fortunately, our relief came in time for us to take a few days and be here for young Kenma’s marriage!”

He clapped Kenma on the back so robustly that Kenma would have fallen over had not Akaashi caught him deftly, helping him regain his balance without batting an eye.

Akaashi had been at the border with Bokuto for months, and had been his knight for nearly two years before that; he was therefore accustomed enough to Bokuto’s outbursts to usually be prepared for such things.

“Very well, what was Tetsurou going to teach you?” Bokuto asked, inspecting the rack of practice weaponry. “Fencing? Archery? Dancing?”

“Dancing?” Tsukishima repeated skeptically.

“Dancing it is!” Bokuto proclaimed, and Tsukishima visibly blanched.

Kenma had been surprised to see him standing with arms folded -- as far away from Shouyou as possible, clearly begrudging, but still there -- when they arrived. It wasn’t clear what had been said to make him change his mind.

But Yamaguchi was there too, some distance away, carefully practicing shooting arrows into a wooden target, and Kenma had his suspicions.

“We should probably stick to fencing,” Akaashi advised, to Tsukishima’s clear relief. He picked up a sword of his own, twirling it experimentally. Akaashi was good with a sword, as he had to be, but Kenma knew he favored his bow. “One on one, then.”

He gestured to Bokuto. “Let’s see who can land a blow.”

Half an hour later, no one had.

Shouyou because, without Tobio there, he did not have the training to surpass a royal prince who was also commander of the Fukurodani army, and Tsukishima because he did not appear to be exerting himself particularly.

“No, no,” Bokuto sighed, flapping a hand at Tsukishima. “You aren’t even raising your arm enough to follow through with the strike, of course it glances off! Kenma, little cat, come here, help me demonstrate.”

Kenma, who had long since relegated himself to sitting cross-legged on the edge of the stands with his chin in one hand, shook his head.

It was clear from his stubborn expression that Bokuto was not going to let it lie, and so it was fortunate that Kuroo chose that moment to return from his meeting, undoing the front ties of his doublet as he approached across the dusty ground.

“There will be a formal strategic meeting after dinner, with all parties,” he said as he drew closer, in answer to Kenma’s questioning look. He shrugged off the doublet, which left him in a loose white shirt more suitable for sparring. “But for now, I have a promise to keep.”

“Excellent,” Bokuto said, pushing a sword into his hands. “Here then, attack me and Kei can see how to parry properly.”

“I don’t believe I gave permission to use my given name,” Tsukishima said. Bokuto ignored him entirely in favor of prodding at his legs until he gave in and moved his feet into the stance the prince wanted.

Kenma had often thought, in the past, that it was very lucky indeed that Fukurodani was not their enemy. He thought it again now, watching Kuroo and Bokuto fight.

They were skilled enough, and familiar enough with each other, that it resembled a dance more than anything.

A few minutes of fierce sparring and the clashing of steel gave way when Kuroo tripped Bokuto back onto one knee and bore down with all his weight, succeeding in pressing the edge of his sword into the neck of Bokuto’s deep blue tunic.

“Now the trick, Kei,” Kuroo said over one shoulder, “is to not allow that to happen.”

“Illuminating,” Tsukishima said. “May I go?”

“You may not,” Kuroo said. “Come on, back to the start, let’s try again.”

*

After over an hour had passed, wherein Kuroo won twice more and Bokuto thrice and then they each summoned one of the Karasuno knights to their side for a practice bout -- during which Akaashi had drifted over to lean against the stands next to Kenma -- Kuroo called an end to practice, much to Shouyou’s distress.

“Be grateful, Hinata,” Yamaguchi said gently, nudging his shoulder. “He’s spent most of his afternoon helping us, when I’m sure there are more pressing things to attend to.”

“Like an impending war, perhaps,” Tsukishima said in the background. “Does that sound familiar to anyone?”

“I was happy to do it,” Kuroo said easily. “We are all stronger together, after all.”

“Speaking of which, it isn’t too late to learn dancing,” Bokuto said.

“In what way is that speaking of which?” Tsukishima asked, sounding fairly exasperated. He made a dismissive hand gesture. “In any case, we trained at court. We know how to dance.”

“You know how to dance your own dances, maybe,” Bokuto corrected. “You have no idea how to dance Nekoma’s.”

“Neither does he,” Kuroo warned, dropping the practice swords back onto their rack with a resounding clang. “Don’t listen to a word he says. If anyone is to teach you dancing, it will be me.”

“I’ve quite missed the point at which we decided it should be anyone,” Kenma said. Akaashi hid a smile, and Kuroo shushed him.

“There’s no music,” Tsukishima pointed out, out of practicality or desperation, Kenma wasn’t sure.

“You will sorely regret saying that,” Kuroo said.

“You’re right, there isn’t,” Bokuto said gravely. “I will have to sing.”

Without any further ado he launched into a rousing rendition of Fukurodani’s battle anthem, with a great many false notes and intermittent humming where he seemed to have forgotten the words, and Kuroo clapped his hands over his ears and said loudly to Kei, “You see? Now you’ve done it.”

Someone yelled “Hinata!” from a distance, and Bokuto left off singing. Tobio was stalking towards them from the opposite direction Kuroo had come, glowering. “You fool, you’ve forgotten to put your armor away!”

Hinata, who had sprawled out in the dust, panting from the exertion, leapt back to his feet. “I have not!” he said, expression twisted in sheer outrage at the false accusation.

“Your highness!” Kuroo interrupted, beaming, seizing Tobio’s arm to intercept him and dragging him the rest of the way over to the group. “You’re just in time, we were short a dance partner.”

Tobio looked more alarmed than if Kuroo had run at him with a sword.

His unease only grew visibly as he was shepherded over to Hinata, as if perhaps he thought they had brought him here to have him ceremonially killed and then, as comprehension of the situation settled in, as if that might in fact be preferable.

“Akaashi, you dance with Kenma,” Kuroo instructed over his shoulder, “He can’t dance with his intended yet, that wouldn’t be proper.”

Akaashi and Kenma exchanged a glance and, after coming to an unspoken mutual decision that humoring Kuroo and Bokuto would, as usual, be easier than arguing, moved into the correct posture for the dance Kuroo had in mind, Nekoma’s simplest and most traditional.

Bokuto began singing again, and they both winced. “Alright then,” Kuroo called over the noise, “Kei, Yamaguchi, the little one, Your Highness, everyone follow what we do and mark the steps.” With that, he took Bokuto’s hand in his and they moved seamlessly into the dance, just as they had into fighting.

“How is he?” Akaashi asked, following Kuroo with his eyes.

It was an easy dance, familiar to them both, and neither had to concentrate particularly on the correct movements. They separated and then joined again, palms touching.

“Carrying the weight of the world, even though no one asked him to,” Kenma said. He inclined his head in the same direction, where Bokuto was now trying to spin Kuroo around, laughing so uproariously that he could not maintain the tune. “And how is he?”

“It varies from moment to moment,” Akaashi said dryly. “He’s been in high spirits since he’s been here, of course, but down at the border, there have been some bad nights. It hasn’t always been easy.”

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had picked up the dance quite quickly, even if they were considerably closer than the choreography called for, and were discussing something quietly that made the corners of Tsukishima’s mouth tick up and his cheeks go ever so faintly pink.

Shouyou and Tobio had not picked up the dance, at all. Shouyou was stepping on Tobio’s feet more than he wasn’t, and Tobio’s body did not seem capable of moving itself in the act of dancing, and so it appeared as if Shouyou was struggling to pirouette with a block of marble.

Kuroo was scolding Bokuto about the placement of his hands, but dissolved into laughter as Kenma watched.

“Is it very bad?” Kenma asked.

“The border?” Akaashi asked quietly. Kenma nodded, and Akaashi shook his head. “No, not at all. Not yet. I think that is part of the problem; we know war is coming, but there’s nothing to do but wait for it. The storm won’t break, and standing on the edge of it is maddening.”

“I know what you mean,” Kenma said.

The warning from Shiratorizawa had been like being doused in cold water, and the growing fear in the palace was palpable. But at the same time, at least it was a change from the months of stalemate, of everyone holding their breath waiting for something, anything, to happen.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” he heard Kuroo say, “He’s going to kill them both.”

Kenma looked over in time to see Tobio and Shouyou, neither consenting to be led, topple over into the dirt, squabbling. “Akaashi,” Kuroo called, “help the small one?”

Akaashi didn’t move right away. He waited until Kuroo had looked away again, and then bent his head to Kenma’s ear. “I’ll keep an eye on him for you,” he murmured. “Once you can’t.”

Kenma didn’t know how it was possible, but somehow, Akaashi had managed to bring up the inevitable future in such a way that it didn’t rouse the slumbering panic that now lived permanently crouched in the back of his mind.

Instead, the promise left him almost weak with relief, and he could feel a suspicious prickling at the corners of his eyes.

He had promised to look after Kuroo, and now he couldn’t any longer. He was glad Akaashi would be around often enough to do it for him, once Kenma was a mountain range and three times a hundred miles away.

He didn’t know how to express any of that aloud, and Akaashi’s expression suggested he didn’t have to, and so Kenma only squeezed Akaashi’s hand in thanks before letting go so he could step over obligingly to help Shouyou up off the ground.

*

On the way back from the practice grounds, Kenma passed by the gardens. The light was fading, but he could still see the darker green picked out against the grass.

Daishou was sitting at the bottom of the steps down from the courtyard, emerald cape pooled around him, looking down at something in his hands.

It was a letter, Kenma realized. He paused between two of the pillars, watching as Daishou scrubbed a sleeve across his eyes and stayed there for a moment, hunched over slightly. Then he visibly inhaled and began to fold the letter up, doing so with more care than Kenma had ever seen him do anything.

He pressed the folded parchment square to his lips before he tucked it beneath his doublet and stood up. Then he turned and saw Kenma, and stopped abruptly.

He did not make the same attempt at pleasantries as he had upon their first meeting. He did not, in fact, say anything at all. Perhaps he was caught off guard by being caught crying, or perhaps he was only tired. Either way, he just stood there, looking at Kenma with watchful eyes, red around the edges.

Despite himself, Kenma felt that the customary wariness and dislike Daishou usually inspired was slow to come. He thought it might be because of what Kuroo had said the day they arrived, and because Kenma thought for the first time what it might be like to be far from home. Far from someone you loved, surrounded by people who disliked and mistrusted you.

He should have thought about it before, probably. He thought perhaps he had deliberately failed to.

When Kenma was upset, he always knew that Kuroo would seek him out, or bother one of the others to do it, to make sure he was alright.

Before he could close the thought out, it crept in: once he was in Karasuno, there would be no one to do that. When he was in Karasuno, he would be alone.

“May I help you, Prince Kenma?” Daishou asked, breaking the silence. He was frowning ever so slightly now, no doubt unnerved by Kenma’s silent scrutiny. His hand was still resting unconsciously over the spot where he had hidden the letter, near his heart.

“Have a good evening, Prince Daishou,” Kenma said, and Daishou blinked, as if trying to figure out Kenma’s angle. He looked his age, without the artful mask he usually wore. “Have a good evening,” he said, slowly.

Kenma felt his gaze following him as he walked away to the stairs.

*****

Later that night Kenma was sitting on his floor cross-legged, examining the maps spread out over the stones by the light of the flickering lamp set beside him. His hair was damp from the bath, but the night air was warm and the blanket draped over his shoulders was enough to keep him from shivering.

“Come in,” he said, in response to the quiet knock on his door. He was startled when it swung open to reveal Kuroo, who never bothered to knock, normally.

Then Kenma’s stomach twisted uncomfortably and he remembered that of course, things weren’t normal, and hadn’t been for days. Maybe even weeks.

He turned his attention back to the maps while Kuroo shut the door behind him and approached where Kenma was sitting. Kenma didn’t ask him what he wanted; Kuroo had always come to find him all the time, for no reason in particular. Or, he had used to.

“I came to say that I’m sorry about what happened the other night, after sparring,” Kuroo said into the silence. Kenma looked up at him, surprised. Days had passed since then, with neither of them mentioning the argument, and Kenma had rather thought they would go on in the same way.

“I meant to apologize sooner,” Kuroo said with a wry smile, as if reading his mind. “But with things so busy, I haven’t had the chance. I overreacted, and I shouldn’t have. You were right.”

“I know,” Kenma said. He looked back down.

He heard Kuroo huff a laugh, and then he was sitting down next to Kenma, pulling a map over so he could look at it too. “You’re studying Fukurodani’s border positions?”

“Mmm.” Kenma wiggled his toes, staring hard down at the encampments marked in black and gold. “Trying to see their vulnerable spots.”

He followed the line of the map south, down to the vast jagged border of Shiratorizawa’s territory.

It used to be larger, Katsumi had told them, long ago. Well before Ushijima’s time, or theirs, Shiratorizawa had held everything. It had been one empire. It was Dateko and Fukurodani first, and Nekoma, Seijoh, and Karasuno later, who had carved pieces back out and kept them.

It still looked far too vast now. A shadow covering the world.

“Do you know that King Ushijima has a faerie knight under his command?” Kenma asked Kuroo, and, when Kuroo made a sound of affirmation, “I’ve never heard of that happening in our history.”

He had heard it from Yaku only yesterday, and had been fascinated.

Kenma had always been far more interested in the creatures that appeared in the histories than the legendary heroes, though by anyone’s telling they had all but vanished in the current age.

The fae had retreated deep into the heart of the forests and the mermaids were sighted from land less and less frequently each passing year, and the dragons -- if, as Shouyou claimed, they even still existed -- remained safe in the mountains with their hoards.

The fae in particular, as a rule, did not involve themselves in human affairs. Not in ages past, and even less so now.

They certainly did not allow themselves to be commanded, and so for Ushijima to be able to control one spoke volumes about the power he held. It was a terrifying thought.

The spectre of Shiratorizawa was menacing enough on its own; with that added terror, it was no wonder that so many territories had surrendered without a fight over the past year.

“If it has happened before, it hasn’t been for a thousand years,” Kuroo said. “Not since the first alliances.”

Kenma studied him for a moment. Kuroo’s hair was falling into his eyes as he bent his head to the maps, and the set of his mouth was thoughtful.

He was still in the clothes he had worn for sparring; his loose white shirt was hopelessly dirty, and had come slightly unlaced during one of the bouts so that it now slipped to one side without him noticing, revealing the bronzed line of his collarbone.

There was a question Kenma had meant to ask him before, days ago, but between one thing and the other it had been pushed out of his head.

“Do you wish to be married?” Kenma asked now, into the silence.

He hadn’t particularly thought about it before Futakuchi had so snidely brought it up, but the Dateko knight had been right; it was unusual. Kuroo was nineteen years old, and he was of noble blood. Kenma would have expected him to have at least entertained a few offers of marriage by now.

Half the garrison was married, and the other half were well on their way. Yaku didn’t seem terribly interested in such things and Lev was promised to Dateko’s crown princess, but Tora had asked for Kenma’s father’s permission to marry years ago, when he and Shouhei were both fifteen, and the king, with no small amount of amusement, had given it.

“He’s only doing it now so that you don’t grow older and wise enough to regret it until it’s too late,” Yaku had warned Shouhei more than once, but Shouhei was undeterred.

They hadn’t married until last year, but it hardly mattered. Devotion was more than words on a paper, and they had known where theirs lay long ago.

Kuroo looked startled by the question, eyes lifting to Kenma’s. Then a slow smile curved his lips. “That’s very rakish of you, Kenma. You’re almost a married man, and here you are, propositioning a hapless--”

Kenma heaved a sigh. “There is no point at all in speaking to you.”

“Fine, fine.” Kuroo nudged his shoulder in apology. “Why are you asking?”

Kenma shrugged, chewing on his bottom lip. Kuroo had seemed so unhappy lately, and he hadn’t been talking to Kenma about everything the way he used to. Perhaps it was because he needed someone else to talk to, about things Kenma couldn’t help him with.

“I was just thinking about what Futakuchi said yesterday. I hadn’t considered it before, but I can mention it to my father. I’m sure he could arrange--”

“No,” Kuroo said. His tone wasn’t sharp, but it was a clear end to that line of questioning all the same.

“Bokuto?” Kenma guessed, and Kuroo laughed quietly.

“He used to say he was going to marry me, you know.” He traced the border of Nekoma where it met with Fukurodani. “When we were children.”

“What happened?”

“We stopped being children,” Kuroo said, raising one eyebrow. “He’s going to be king in a few years. Even if he could choose whom to marry, it certainly wouldn’t be a knight, and certainly not one outside his court.”

“But you have thought about it,” Kenma pressed.

“We’ve talked about it,” Kuroo said. “That necessitated thinking about it.”

“Do you love him?”

Kuroo made a humming noise. “Very much so,” he said, as if the admission was easy. Kenma supposed for someone like Kuroo, it probably was.

Kenma watched him carefully. If Kuroo was upset that he couldn’t be with the person he loved, it would explain a good deal of odd behavior.

Could that be it? After all Kenma’s worry, could it be as simple as that? “I see,” he said.

And then just like that, he did see.

Kenma realized, at last, the answer to the question he had asked after sparring, the question that Kuroo had been unwilling to answer. He realized what had been bothering Kuroo because he now remembered only a few nights ago, what he had said so callously, without even thinking.

“I think I understand now why you have been behaving so strangely,” he said.

Kuroo stilled. “Have I been?” he asked lightly.

“You know you have,” Kenma said. “And I want you to know that I don’t blame you.”

He felt horribly guilty, thinking about it now, and went on hurriedly, “But I didn’t mean you. What I said about Shouyou being foolish for not guarding his heart. I didn’t think, at the time, when I said it. It was careless.”

Careless, as he feared he often was with Kuroo, who wore his heart on his sleeve and seemed to take no care at all to protect it. Kenma should have taken better care on his behalf.

Kuroo didn’t move for a long moment, and then he said, slowly, “You mean…”

“You and Bokuto,” Kenma said. He was ashamed of how cruel he had been, without even realizing. He twisted his hands together. “I know it’s not the same, and I shouldn’t have dismissed the subject like that. I didn’t think until now how it must have sounded, under the circumstances. I didn’t mean it. I just wanted you to know.”

Kuroo’s expression cleared. He dropped his head, laughing quietly. Kenma was mildly affronted, since he was trying his best to make amends and did not know what could possibly be funny, under the circumstances.

“Thank you, Kenma,” Kuroo said. He traced Nekoma’s border again, idly, but this time his gaze was unfocused, and Kenma could tell he wasn’t really looking at it.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. “But there’s no need to apologize. You were right. It is the same. If my heart breaks, it’s only my own fault because I allowed it to happen. I know better than to love someone I can’t possibly have.”

He smiled faintly, looking back at Kenma. “I knew better years ago and I didn’t stop it.”

Kenma didn’t know what to say. He and Kuroo had talked about everything, their whole lives, but this was new.

“Don’t say that,” he said at last. He couldn’t stand seeing that look on Kuroo’s face, the resigned, poorly-masked sadness that he either thought Kenma couldn’t recognize or was simply too tired to hide better.

“Very well,” Kuroo said softly. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me how I can help.”

“Perhaps it’s not something that can be helped,” Kuroo said.

Kenma’s eyes moved over his face, struggling to read the minutiae he used to be able to discern so easily. Like the first thing he ever knew by heart. “But it’s all I can think about,” he insisted. “How to fix it.”

One of Kuroo’s hands covered both of his, gently untangling his fingers from each other and smoothing a thumb over his palm.

“You can’t fix everything,” Kuroo said. The words were soft, not harsh, but they still made Kenma flinch. He couldn’t bear the idea that this was unfixable. That he would never have things back the way they were. He closed his hand around Kuroo’s at the thought.

“I have to be up for the night watch soon,” Kuroo said. He tugged his hand free, gently, and got to his feet. “I’m going to try and get a bit of sleep before then.”

Kenma considered, for a moment, telling him to stop. He considered ordering him to. He considered standing up, blocking his path, demanding that Kuroo tell him what was going on.

But he didn’t. He said nothing at all, only sat on the cold stone and watched Kuroo slip back out through the doors away from him.

Chapter Text

The following day was the day before the wedding, and everyone was so busy with preparations that Kenma didn’t see Kuroo even once.

All of the servants were constantly in and out of the kitchens bearing tureens of expensive delicacies and platters of other, still more expensive delicacies, and each of the guards had to be outfitted in their most formal uniforms, the ones that barely saw daylight and so required unforeseen last minute alterations now, and various grooms kept coming in and out of Kenma’s rooms to make sure all of his belongings were packed for the trip to Karasuno.

Ordinarily, they might stay longer after the wedding before leaving Nekoma. Days longer, even weeks.

But these weren’t ordinary circumstances, and the formal declaration of war from Shiratorizawa had thrown things into sharp relief. The impending threat looming on the horizon meant that all parties had arranged to return to their kingdoms without delay to make ready for what was coming.

Kenma, for once, didn’t take in any of the details. He couldn’t; he was too busy searching for someone who wasn’t there, anywhere he looked.

He was acutely aware of Kuroo’s absence, but every time he tried to slip away to look for him he found himself forced into a formal counsel with Nohebi, or being pulled aside to look over a new draft of a trade contract with Karasuno that only had three words changed from the previous one.

Between one thing and the next, he didn’t even have a moment to himself until after dinner, when his father had instructed him to go and try on his clothing for the ceremony tomorrow so that the tailor could come by and alter the garments as needed.

They had meant to be finished earlier, the king said, but in all of the bustle the task had been pushed aside.

Dutifully, Kenma did try the clothes on. The red velvet doublet was stiff and uncomfortable, and chafed under the arms. It had Nekoma’s seal and the Kozume coat of arms wrought in black thread over the breast. The trousers fit well enough, but were slightly too long.

He checked that the heavy fur-lined cloak did not drag behind him too much and then cast it off again impatiently without checking the mirror. He had an aversion to seeing what he looked like, dressed up. Not the clothes themselves, but what they signified. He still wasn’t quite ready to face it, even now.

He was running out of time to do so, of course. It was happening tomorrow, whether he faced it or not.

Kenma sat down cross-legged on his bed and attempted to read for a while, waiting for his father’s tailor, but the words blurred together on the page and he didn’t take in a single one.

As the hour advanced there was still no sign of anyone, and nothing left to occupy his attention besides wondering where Kuroo was.

Kenma closed his book with a snap and set it aside, getting to his feet. It was going to rain, he noticed distantly as he crossed to the window, looking out at the gathering storm clouds looming over the dusk-grey grounds. It had not rained in Nekoma in almost a year.

While he stood there, his attention was caught by the ring of steel on steel, drifting up from the practice grounds, and his heart leapt.

Could Kuroo be out training, this late? It was impractical, given the turning weather, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

Ignoring the fact that he was still in ceremonial clothing he would likely be scolded for wearing out of doors if anyone caught him, Kenma turned from the window and hurried out of his room, down the stairs and out to the source of the noise.

He thought for a moment, upon hearing the unmistakable metallic sound of swords clashing again as he approached the practice grounds, that he had guessed correctly.

Then he drew nearer, and heard raised voices that were familiar but not the one he was hoping to hear, and his heart sank again.

It wasn’t Kuroo. It was Shouyou and Tobio.

They had been sparring, that much was obvious. They were still standing opposite each other, at a distance, squaring off as if for a real fight.

They were in the middle of an argument. The origin was unclear, but the present dialogue was easy enough to parse.

“Why are you yelling at me?” Shouyou was yelling. “I don’t understand what it is I’ve done, but you’ve been awful this whole time! You asked me to come with you and I don’t even know why, when you’re acting as if you despise me!”

Tobio threw down his sword into the dust, whirling on him. “Perhaps I do!” he shouted back, sounding terribly as if he might mean it.

There was a moment of awful silence, and then, “Fine then! I’ll go, will that make you happy?” Shouyou threw at him, balling up his fists. “I’ll ride home right now!”

He said it with enough conviction that Kenma half expected him to leave and saddle his horse directly, as if the ride home was not a hundred miles over a mountain pass in the middle of the night, in a growing storm.

“You will not,” Tobio snarled. He marched forward and grabbed hold of the front of Shouyou’s shirt, hauling him up on his toes, the metal fingers of his glove twisted in the fabric. “You will do what I tell you, for once in your life!”

Kenma wondered how it was possible they couldn’t recognize on each other’s faces what he so clearly saw on both of theirs. A matching hunger.

Shouyou shoved at him, which did nothing at all to dislodge Tobio’s grip. There were dirt trails like tear stains on his face, from exertion or emotion or both, Kenma couldn’t tell. “Then tell me what it is you want,” he retorted, “because I have absolutely no idea!”

“I don’t,” Tobio started, and then faltered. He gritted his teeth. “I don’t know!”

Kenma knew he was telling the truth, because he was watching closely enough to be able to pinpoint the moment it became a lie.

They were both panting from the struggle. Shouyou was glaring up at Tobio and Tobio was glaring back down at him, jaw set. And then something changed, or something fell into place, and his gaze flickered, dropped down to Shouyou’s mouth.

Tobio leaned in as if on wild instinct, as if he absolutely couldn’t help it, and then he gasped raggedly, catching himself.

He jerked back so violently he might have been run through with lightning and all but threw Shouyou away from him, taking two panicked steps backward.

Shouyou was left where he’d been pushed, bowled over by the force of Tobio’s fear, sprawled back on his hands in the dust. His expression was twisted in confusion and anger. Tobio’s registered only sheer terror.

The prince of Karasuno turned without another word and ran.

The storm finally broke overhead, and fat droplets of rain began to splatter the dry earth, soaking in immediately.

Shouyou did not pick himself up from the ground at once. He just stayed there, staring in the direction in which Tobio had run off, as the dirt darkened with rain around him.

It was some time before he started getting slowly to his feet, and Kenma remembered why he was outside in the first place and moved on to avoid being seen, circling back to the courtyard.

Kenma had thought it was terrible, that Shouyou loved Tobio without even realizing.

He thought now of Daishou, clutching a letter from home like it was the only thing in the world that mattered. Of Kuroo, staring down at the map of Fukurodani the night before.

Of the expression on Tobio’s face before he fled, as if everything was crashing down around him.

Kenma considered that perhaps it was far more terrible to love someone, and to realize.

*

Bokuto’s door was open wide, and as Kenma drew nearer he saw two of the squires carrying out a heavy trunk between them. More trunks and saddlebags were stacked near the door. Fukurodani was readying for a journey.

Bokuto was speaking to one of his knights as Kenma approached.

“You’re leaving?” Kenma asked, and the prince turned. He was fully dressed in his travelling armor and deep blue cloak, the crown he so often forgot to wear gleaming at his brow. He looked far more tired and less cheerful than the last time Kenma had seen him.

“We’ve been called back to Fukurodani,” he said, as Konoha bowed to Kenma and busied himself assisting with the trunk. “I’m afraid we’ll be missing the festivities after all.”

“Ushijima?” Kenma asked, feeling dread settle in his stomach. There was only one thing he could think of urgent enough to call Fukurodani back home so abruptly.

For the news to necessitate leaving tonight rather than waiting for the morning, it had to be quite bad indeed.

But Bokuto shook his head. He fiddled with the clasp of his cloak, clearing his throat. “My father’s health has been poor for some time,” he said, somewhat hoarse. “We received word that he has taken a turn for the worse, and my mother sent a messenger to ask us to return home.”

“Oh,” Kenma said quietly. Bokuto nodded vigorously, not quite looking at him, and Kenma said, “I’m very sorry.”

Bokuto held his arms out, and this time Kenma walked into them without a fight and let himself be embraced tightly. Bokuto bowed his head to press his face into Kenma’s hair, and Kenma thought he could feel him shaking.

He had never seen Bokuto afraid before.

“Have you seen Kuroo?” he asked, once Bokuto had released him with suspiciously red-rimmed eyes. “I thought he would be here.”

“No, little cat, I haven’t,” Bokuto said. He sniffed briskly. “Not for hours. I would like to say goodbye to him. I believe Akaashi mentioned he saw him earlier. Akaashi!’

“What?” Akaashi’s voice came, distantly, from behind the neighboring door.

“You saw Tetsurou earlier?”

“Hours ago,” was Akaashi’s answer, dashing Kenma’s hopes. “He was going out riding.”

Kenma felt the first stirrings of fear.

Hours ago. Had Kuroo gone out, and not come back?

Akaashi emerged from behind the door, assisting one of the other knights with carrying out several packs. He had dark circles like bruises under his eyes, and Kenma thought it likely, having known him for some time, that Akaashi had barely slept in days. He would have been too busy looking after his men, and their prince.

“I wish you luck,” Kenma said to them both. His throat felt raw. “All of it we have.”

No doubt Shiratorizawa knew King Mimizuku was ailing too. If he were to die while the crown prince was elsewhere and the kingdom was left without a leader, even for a matter of days, it would be a perfect opportunity to try for an attack on the capitol.

“I am afraid that we will need it,” Akaashi said, and clasped Kenma’s offered hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said more quietly, when Bokuto had turned away to speak with the master at arms about something. “It appears I won’t be able to keep an eye on Kuroo just yet after all.”

“Keep an eye on Bokuto, then, as usual,” Kenma said. “That is more than enough.”

*

Kenma waited several seconds prior to knocking on the doors to Kuroo’s rooms, and then several more, waiting for a response, before pushing the unlocked doors open.

It felt like intruding, even though Kuroo would hardly have hesitated if their places were reversed.

But his suite was empty, just like the hallways and the practice grounds and everywhere else Kenma had looked, and Kenma sat down on the edge of the bed, more anxious than he could remember being in quite some time. So anxious he could barely breathe.

Kuroo was a good rider, but it was raining out and it was now full dark, and even the best of riders could suffer a thrown shoe or a lamed horse riding in good conditions. If Kuroo had ventured too far before night fell, and had met with trouble, there would be no way to tell before morning.

And then, there was the question that he kept returning to -- setting aside where Kuroo was, why had he gone out at all, today of all days, without saying anything to anyone? Without saying anything to Kenma?

Kuroo had been there his whole life, every part of it he could remember. Kenma couldn’t properly envision what it would look like without him. It was like trying to chart the blank space at the edges of a map.

The last time they had been apart for any significant amount of time had been Kuroo’s trials.

Kenma had been fourteen that year, and Kuroo was fifteen. Kuroo had gone away with Yaku and Kai for months to do his trials abroad, as all squires had to do in their final year before knighthood, and Kenma had been left at the castle by himself.

It had taken his father days even to convince him to leave his rooms. He had been sympathetic at first and then, quickly, less so.

“You’re nearly a man grown, Kenma,” he had said on the fifth day, from the doorway. “This is no way for a man to act.”

Kenma was curled up in his bed with the blankets wrapped tightly around him, facing the windows. His father had come in and dragged the blankets back off of him, taking hold of his arm and forcing him to his feet.

“I know Tetsurou is your friend, but he is a knight of the realm first,” the king had said. His tone was sharp, his gaze sharper. “I have indulged you in this regard for far too long. The fit you are throwing is embarrassing, not to mention disgraceful to you both.”

Kenma hadn’t wanted to listen to him, but the words crept into his mind and wouldn’t be dislodged.

Kuroo was a knight of the realm. Kenma knew that. He did. Of course Kuroo was going to leave, and even if he came back he would always leave again, on some campaign or quest or other.

Nekoma didn’t feel like home without him, but someday, one way or another, it would have to.

So he had come out of his rooms. Tora and Shouhei had been there, because their trials weren’t until the following year, and even though they weren’t Kuroo they had been surprisingly alright to spend time with. He had tolerated their company, and then -- to no one’s surprise more than his own -- even welcomed it.

The two of them had stuck oddly close, always turning up in the library or happening upon him out in the gardens with very coincidental timing. Kenma had realized fairly quickly that Kuroo must have told them to keep an eye on him.

Kuroo had been preparing for the time he would be gone, even if Kenma hadn’t.

Maybe it was time Kenma did.

That was why, when Kuroo did come back just over half a year later, taller and tanned and more muscular from weeks and weeks of training in the heat and dust of the day, Kenma didn’t run down to meet him the way he wanted to.

Instead he stayed in his rooms, sitting on the window seat with his knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped tight around them, until he heard footsteps outside and felt his heart leap into his throat.

It was far sooner than he expected, since a banquet had been arranged and all of Nekoma was out to welcome back their knights in training. There was nothing Kuroo loved more than an event in his honor.

And yet, it could not have been more than ten minutes from the time that the returning squires’ horses were spotted on the road to the palace that Kuroo flung open Kenma’s door without knocking. He must have run up all the stairs.

“Did you miss me?” he had asked, beaming.

It was momentarily startling, how different he looked after only seven months away. The picture Kenma had of him in his mind came up against the Kuroo standing in his doorway with a jarring dissonance.

Or maybe he wasn’t so different, and it was just that Kenma was only used to the way he looked because he saw him every day, and had long since ceased to find his height and the sharp turn of his mouth surprising.

Kuroo’s eyes had widened then, the smug expression sliding right off his face. “Kenma, are you crying?”

“No,” Kenma said, except it seemed somehow he was, all of a sudden.

Kuroo had been beside him in an instant, had crowded him over on the window seat, pulling him into his arms without hesitation. Kenma had let him do it just as unthinkingly, burying his face in Kuroo’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo had murmured. He smelled like road dust and sweat. “I’m sorry,” he said again, voice muffled by Kenma’s hair. “I didn’t think.”

After a moment he pulled back and took Kenma’s face in his hands, gently. He brushed the tears away with his thumbs, and said, “There.” His smile was back but it was different, softer now. “You see? You did miss me, I knew it.”

“I did not miss you,” Kenma said, and hiccuped. “While you all were gone there was no one to distract Lev from following me around and speaking to me, all the time. It was horrible.”

“It sounds horrible,” Kuroo said solemnly. He gathered Kenma back against his chest and Kenma let him, soothed by the steady sound of his heartbeat under the roughspun traveling shirt Kuroo was wearing.

Don’t leave me again, Kenma had thought then, suddenly. His hands had crept up to embrace Kuroo back, to feel that he was real and tangible and there. Don’t go away again.

But that was selfish, foolish. Of course he couldn’t ask it. Kuroo had his whole life ahead of him, after all. A life of thrilling crusades and adventures abroad. He couldn’t stay at the palace just because Kenma wanted him to. So Kenma hadn’t said anything at all. Not then, and not in the days afterwards.

But for all that, Kuroo hadn’t gone away. Nohebi had attacked later that year, and he was made captain, and Kenma hadn’t had to worry about him leaving after all.

And of all the most awful ironies, after all of that, Kenma was the one who had to leave.

He had to leave, and now, after cornering him into facing that fact for weeks, Kuroo wasn’t here. As if it didn’t matter.

It didn’t make any sense at all, just like so many things where Kuroo was concerned of late. And that, above all, was why Kenma determined that he would wait for Kuroo to come back here, rather than going back to his own rooms, so he could know as soon as he returned and could demand some answers at last.

It was cold in the room, and Kenma lit the lamp on the desk and sat back down on the bed, dragging a nearby blanket over himself. He watched the flame flicker and glow behind the glass, and could hear the rain coming down even harder outside.

One moment he had resolved to lie down for just a moment while he waited for Kuroo to come back, and the next someone was saying his name and he was being shaken gently awake without ever having meant to sleep.

Kuroo was leaning over him, and Kenma came all the way conscious at once. The soft blurred edges of him resolved and sharpened.

“I was looking for you,” Kenma said, leaning up as Kuroo pulled back. He felt weak with relief at the sight of him, even as he knew how ridiculous that was. As if it had been days, and not hours. “Where have you been?”

Kuroo was soaking wet, hair drenched and clothes sticking to his skin. Kenma could feel the cold radiating off him, even though they weren’t touching. He must have been caught in the rain after all.

Kuroo moved away from the bed and crossed to his bureau, pulling a dry shirt out of a drawer. “You shouldn’t be in here, Kenma,” he said, which wasn’t an answer. Kenma was growing very tired of those.

“You come into my room all the time,” Kenma said, after a moment’s pause wherein he realized that was all Kuroo was going to say.

He sat up, rubbing at his eyes. The lamp had burned low while he slept, and every movement Kuroo made threw long shadows throughout the room.

“That’s different,” Kuroo said. He poured more oil into the lamp and relit it. The dreamlike quality of the first few moments after awakening faded as the flame steadied and grew and the room brightened.

As much as Kenma wanted to argue, he knew Kuroo was right. It was different. He could feel it now, in the quiet space of Kuroo’s rooms. He never came in here. Kuroo always came to find him before he needed to.

“Bokuto and Akaashi are leaving,” Kenma remembered. He glanced out the window. It had stopped raining while he slept, and the moon was high and bright in the sky, drifting free of the grey wisps of cloud. “Or they’ve left, by now. What time is it?”

“Just past midnight,” Kuroo said. He still wasn’t looking at him. “There was an issue with one of their horses. They’re finally leaving now. I said my goodbyes on my way up.”

Past midnight. It was much too late, but that was as good a time as any, for the simple reason that it was the only time they had left.

Kenma couldn’t leave without answers, without at the very least making Kuroo acknowledge the situation as it was. Even if what he had said the night before was true, and it couldn’t be fixed.

“Were you planning on saying goodbye to me?” Kenma asked into the silence. “I leave tomorrow.”

Kuroo made a sound, and Kenma thought it might’ve been meant as a laugh but it came out oddly. He shut the drawer, shirt in hand, but didn’t turn around. “I know you do.”

“Then why avoid me all day?” Kenma asked. “I was worried.”

It sounded more like an accusation than he meant it to. Or perhaps that was exactly how he meant it.

He didn’t bother asking Kuroo if he had been avoiding him, not when it was already plain to both of them that he had. Kuroo hadn’t wanted to see him, had from the looks of it taken great care to ensure he didn’t, and Kenma wanted to know why.

Why, after so many years of Kuroo always being there, he suddenly wasn’t now, when Kenma needed him most.

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo said. At last he turned to face Kenma, but he didn’t come closer. “Every time we’ve talked lately, I seem to have made a mess of things.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” Kenma said.

“Please, Kenma,” Kuroo said softly. He looked sad, and tired, and something else unnameable. “Please just trust me. It was for the best that I stayed away today. Just like it is for the best that you leave and go back to your rooms now, before someone notices.”

For the best? How could something be for the best, Kenma thought, when he felt miserable and Kuroo looked no better? How could Kenma be expected to accept such a certain statement based on no evidence at all?

Trust me, Kuroo was saying. And Kenma did trust him, of course he did, but he had no idea what that had to do with the very simple question he was asking.

He didn’t move. “Not until you explain,” he insisted.

Kuroo still hadn’t changed out of his wet shirt. He looked down at the dry garment in his hands as if considering it. There was rainwater dripping slowly from the damp curls of his hair, gleaming on his skin in the lamplight. “I can’t,” he said, like it hurt him to say it.

That, and nothing else.

“Of course you can,” Kenma said, patience fraying. The words sounded sharper than he meant them to, the edges undulled in his rush to get them out. “You just won’t. Why won’t you, even now?”

“I can’t,” Kuroo said again. He held a hand up in Kenma’s direction, palm out, as if pleading. As if he was asking for mercy.

Kenma didn’t think he had mercy in him at the moment.

“Since when is there something you can’t tell me?” Kenma wanted to know. “You’ve always told me everything, whether or not I wanted you to.”

He got to his feet and folded his arms over his chest, mimicking Kuroo’s voice. “‘Kenma, I was thinking about it today and I have decided I should keep my hair at a different length. Kenma, I am going to take up practicing left-handed because Taketora thinks I won’t be able to carry it off.’” He waved an airy hand. “‘Kenma, I’ve spent some time with the prince of Fukurodani and I’ve discovered that kissing is fun.’”

Kuroo raised his eyes to his. “Kenma, I am in love with you,” he said.

The room was silent for what felt like a very long time. Kenma hadn’t been moving, but now he was sure he couldn’t if he tried. He felt shocked into stillness.

Finally he blinked and said, “No, you aren’t.”

He said it with certainty, because it was true, because he knew it was true; because Kuroo had never once said anything to give any indication that it wasn’t, and Kuroo would have told him.

Kuroo sank back onto the bed in almost the same spot Kenma had abandoned, bowing his head. He set the shirt aside and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m fairly surprised you never noticed,” he said with a faint laugh. “You’ve always said I wore my heart on my sleeve.”

Looking at him, Kenma suddenly felt less sure.

“That can’t be true,” he pressed, because he needed Kuroo to stop acting so strangely and agree with him. “You would have told me.”

“I have told you everything, all my life,” Kuroo said. He looked back up at him. “Except one thing.”

Kenma had never felt so lost. Realizing there was something he did not know about Kuroo was as startling as turning a familiar bend in the hedge maze and being met only with another wall of leaves instead of the path to freedom.

“I have loved you since I was twelve years old,” Kuroo said, into the soft quiet of the room. “I loved you long before I knew what it meant.”

Kenma opened his mouth to insist again that no, he hadn’t, because that wasn’t possible. But then he looked at Kuroo and his irritation dissolved because it was suddenly very obvious that it was.

His knowledge of the situation fell apart and reconstructed itself, allowing this new truth, this old truth, to take its place at the center.

The past several years rewrote themselves.

I know better, Kuroo had said to him only yesterday. I knew better years ago.

“When I left for my trials,” he said now, slowly, as if choosing each word carefully, “I told myself that I would step back, for both our good. I made myself a promise. It’s the only promise in my life I’ve ever failed to keep.”

Why? Kenma wanted to ask. How is that possible? he wanted to ask. He felt like nothing more than the broken needle on a compass, spinning around and around having lost true north.

“You should have told me,” he said at last, for lack of anything better, and because he hated not having important information and Kuroo knew that, had always known that.

“I never tried to hide it,” Kuroo said. “Not one word, not one action. I simply didn’t say it aloud.”

Kenma tried to find fault with that, shuffled through a thousand memories attempting to pinpoint an example in which he could prove it wasn’t true, and came up troublingly short.

“Why?” he asked, the one question Kuroo still had not answered.

It was not delicately phrased, but it was far too late -- both in terms of the hour, and in the conversation -- for that. “Why not just tell me?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Kuroo asked.

The obvious. Kenma left off thinking about it the way he was, now, and thought about it the way Kuroo must have, then. It was easy enough to consider everything from his perspective, without much effort.

Kenma was royalty. Kuroo was not. Kenma was always going to marry someone else. It wouldn’t change anything, for Kenma to know. It couldn’t alter the destinies already written for them. It was still impossible. It could only ever make things harder.

He paged through all of these things, examined them cursorily, and then set them aside.

“Yes,” Kenma said. “Aside from that.”

“I assumed it would upset you,” Kuroo said. When Kenma looked at him curiously, he smiled softly and explained, “You always hated being noticed.”

That was true, certainly. By all objective measures it was. But Kuroo was failing to acknowledge an extremely important detail, one which Kenma didn’t know how he could have overlooked in all his considerations. “Not when it’s you,” Kenma said. “I never minded when it was you.”

“Does that mean I haven’t lost your friendship?”

The question hurt, an ache deepening in Kenma’s chest. “No,” he said quietly. “I had rather thought, lately, that I was losing yours.”

“That’s my own fault, and I am sorry for it,” Kuroo said. He examined the drenched hem of his shirt for a moment and then held it up, offering half a smile. “As it turns out, I haven’t been coping all too well with the idea of you leaving.”

“You might have just said so,” Kenma said. “I haven’t been either.”

Kuroo shook his head. “I couldn’t. Not without saying too much. Every time I tried, I seemed to only make things worse.” He closed his eyes, briefly, and then opened them again. The apology was clear in his voice when he said, “You have to understand, I never meant to tell you any of this.”

Kenma believed him. Kuroo didn’t lie.

Kenma knew with absolute surety that if he had not come looking for him, or if Kuroo had not come back when he did, or had any variety of things happened differently, they would never have ended up here, having this conversation, and Kenma would have left tomorrow morning not knowing.

He might have lived the rest of his life not knowing. The thought made his heart lurch like he had missed a step going downstairs.

Kuroo, unaware, caught Kenma’s hand in his. “I am sorry,” he said again. “I meant to spare us both.” He lifted it and brushed his lips over Kenma’s knuckles, the ghost of a kiss.

Kenma didn’t like that he was sorry. From the first moment of realization -- understanding what Kuroo was saying, what that meant, what it might mean -- he had braced himself to feel terrified, to want for him to take it back, and he found somewhat to his own surprise that he didn’t.

Abstractly, it did sound very like something that he wouldn’t like, to have someone in love with him. But it wasn’t someone, it was Kuroo, and because of that he didn’t mind it the way he would have thought.

Kenma considered Kuroo, sitting before him in his worn trousers and unlaced shirt, with no armor on at all. Kenma had accused him, some days ago, of making everything complicated. But now it was as if all other paths had vanished, as if the snarl of twine distracting Kenma’s thoughts had been unknotted.

Kenma had been the one making things complicated. Kuroo made them simple.

The whole world had changed, or maybe it hadn’t, but Kuroo loved him and Kenma was aware of him in a way he never had been before, in the quiet intimacy of the room.

“You said you loved me before you knew what it meant,” Kenma said into the silence. He was trying to think, and he often did his best thinking out loud.

Kuroo didn’t flinch at having his own painfully honest words spoken back to him. He just looked at Kenma, curiously. “Yes,” he said.

“How did you realize?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Kuroo said, looking down at Kenma’s hand still held in his. “I mean, I always loved you. At some point I just looked around and realized that I loved you differently than I thought.”

“Oh,” Kenma said. He was not satisfied with this answer in the slightest. It seemed impossible that it could be something as easy as that, that nothing would have happened to signify such a momentous change. That seemed, to him, a dangerously easy thing to miss, if you weren’t looking for it. “That simple?”

“Yes,” Kuroo said softly. “That simple.”

Kenma thought about that for a long moment, and then asked, “What if you hadn’t?”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Kuroo said.

Kenma didn’t answer right away. He was looking down at Kuroo, letting his gaze travel over the lines of a face he knew by heart and always had. The compass’ arrow had stopped spinning and he felt steady again, anchored. Could it really be that easy, after everything?

Could he have somehow overlooked something so fundamental, precisely because it was built into his very foundations and he had, therefore, never needed to consider it as something separate from himself?

“Kenma?” Kuroo asked, looking confused.

Kenma blinked. “What if you loved someone for so long, as long as you can remember,” he began, frowning. “And what if you didn’t ever know anything else, so you never realized? What then?”

Comprehension flickered over Kuroo’s face, wavering at first and then steady.

“Kenma,” Kuroo said again, but the inflection was different this time. He said the two syllables slowly, cautiously, as if he didn’t dare to. “What are you saying?”

What was he saying? He hadn’t known, at first, but it was suddenly very obvious. That simple, Kuroo had said.

“I think you know,” Kenma said.

“You have to tell me,” Kuroo said. He got to his feet. His eyes didn’t waver from Kenma’s.

There was so much hope in his expression now, and he was making no attempt at all to hide it. It made something in Kenma’s heart ache. “I won’t know anything unless you say it aloud.”

His scrutiny was too intense, and Kenma had to look away for a moment under the weight of it. He sighed, attempting to summon some appearance of neutrality even as he could feel his face warm. “Since you appear to be set on being difficult,” he said, and looked back somewhat defiantly, “I am saying that it seems that I love you, too.”

He was somewhat startled by hearing it, shocked to recognize at last the enormous unnamed something that had taken up so much space for years and years quite without his knowledge and had waited patiently, all this time, for him to notice it.

Kuroo took Kenma’s face in both his hands, asking a wordless question that Kenma answered by taking a step closer, giving into a tug like gravity.

Kenma was very sure that his skin hadn’t used to sing wherever Kuroo touched him. He was certain he would have noticed that.

“Are you sure?” Kuroo asked quietly. He asked it as if everything in the world depended on Kenma’s answer.

Kenma remembered him asking, days ago, if there was something that Kenma wanted. Something selfish.

He hadn’t thought so, but now, looking up at Kuroo and the curve of his jaw and the damp hair curling into his eyes, he realized that there was, after all. There always had been.

“I loved you for that long too,” Kenma said. He didn’t look away this time. “I loved you since before I can remember.”

Kuroo made a soft sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and gathered him into his arms, burying his face in Kenma’s shoulder.

He was shaking all over, perhaps from the lingering chill of the rainwater or perhaps from something else. But he was warm and solid under his damp clothes and Kenma let himself sink into the embrace, fitting himself into the familiar space he had so missed and resting his cheek against Kuroo’s chest.

He could hear Kuroo’s heartbeat, or maybe that was his own. Both were so loud, he couldn’t tell.

When Kenma opened his eyes next Kuroo had raised his head and was watching him, mouth slightly parted as if to ask a question. Kenma went up on his tiptoes to press a kiss to his mouth in answer, soft but deliberate.

“Kenma,” Kuroo breathed against his lips, and he’d said Kenma’s name so many times before but Kenma had never heard it sound like that. He liked the way it sounded, like that.

The first kiss Kuroo ever gave him was achingly gentle, just the faintest brush of lips while he held Kenma’s face cradled in his hands. It still sent warmth all the way down to Kenma’s toes. Then his hands slipped into Kenma’s hair, tipping his head back, and it was less cautious, more sure.

Kuroo tasted like rainwater. Kissing him at last -- and that was amusing, or would be later, how quickly Kenma had begun to think impatiently “at last” about something that had first occurred to him barely a handful of minutes ago -- felt like a storm breaking.

When Kenma pulled back this time and Kuroo’s eyes blinked open again beneath his long lashes, they were big and dark.

That Kenma had possessed the power to make him look thusly for some time — for years, if Kuroo was to be believed, which he always was — and had not known to take advantage of it seemed a terrible loss.

He lifted a tentative hand to Kuroo’s face, tracing down the line of his cheekbone to his lips with his fingertips and watching his eyes flutter shut again as he turned his face into the touch.

“This is a problem,” Kenma said abruptly. Thinking was more difficult with Kuroo touching him, and it was the first thing that occurred to him, once he had found his voice again.

Kuroo made an odd sound and pressed his face into Kenma’s hair, circling both arms around his waist. He was trembling again, Kenma could feel it, and it took Kenma a moment to realize that this time, it was because he was laughing.

“I am sure I don’t see what is funny,” Kenma said crossly, or at least he wanted to be cross but couldn’t quite manage it because Kuroo’s proximity was very distracting. Every casual touch felt new. “I have to get married tomorrow. Today. In a matter of hours.”

Kuroo pulled back, letting his hands slide down to Kenma’s waist, resting them there so lightly that Kenma could step back if he wanted to. Kenma didn’t.

“Nothing’s funny,” Kuroo said, “I’m just very happy.”

And then, before Kenma could question him further, “What if you didn’t have to?”

“What if I didn’t have to be married, you mean?” Kenma asked, tone incredulous, and when Kuroo nodded, “You will excuse me if I don’t find hypotheticals particularly diverting at the moment.”

“It isn’t a hypothetical,” Kuroo said. His eyes were gleaming in that worrying way that always meant nothing good for Kenma. “I have been trying, for weeks, to think of a way to leave the kingdom without arousing suspicion. I do believe we have found one.”

“You want to leave?” Kenma asked, blinking, because surely he had misunderstood. Kuroo was Nekoma. They were one and the same. “We’re preparing for war,” he said, growing concerned Kuroo might somehow have forgotten. Perhaps he had been injured while out riding after all.

“That is precisely why I want to leave,” Kuroo said. “Do you remember what you overheard, when I was speaking with your father?”

“Yes,” Kenma said, and then, with dawning trepidation, “Oh, no. You can’t possibly mean…” he looked with dwindling hope for any sign in Kuroo’s expression that he was not entirely serious, and found none. “You do. You want to go to Seijoh?”

“I can’t stay here and wait for the battle to come to us when there is a chance we could stop it before it ever reaches our border,” Kuroo said. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Kenma said, and then added emphatically, before Kuroo could seize upon this, “In theory, only. Have you forgotten what my father said? Seijoh isn’t going to help us. They turned away messengers from Fukurodani and Dateko. Why would Nekoma be any different?”

“I don’t know,” Kuroo said, with a maddening lack of concern. “But we will have to be.”

“Setting aside how spectacularly poor a plan that is, considering how much you want to stake on it,” Kenma said, “I fail to see how you think me leaving with you would be any less suspicious.”

“If I went with other soldiers, or even if I went alone, as the captain of the guard, that would be suspicious,” Kuroo said. “Ushijima would recognize the gambit immediately for what it was. But if I leave because I’ve run off in disgrace with a prince,” he said, and shrugged, “well, that’s tawdry gossip. I don’t think he’d pay any attention to that at all.”

“Even if that is true, you’ve forgotten that I can’t just run off with you,” Kenma said. “A rather important treaty depends on it.”

His heart lurched, as he said it. He knew he couldn’t leave. Obligation made it impossible. But the thought of the alternative, while once only disagreeable, was now almost unthinkable.

Marrying someone else, and leaving for Karasuno without Kuroo -- the thought made him lean into Kuroo again in direct opposition to the point he was trying to make, feeling Kuroo’s arms come up to wrap around him and hearing the amused rumble in his chest in response.

Kenma had been right, before. Realizing you loved someone was terrible.

“You’re right, you can’t break the treaty,” Kuroo said, and Kenma felt his heart sink still further. “In which case, I don’t see any way around it,” he went on thoughtfully. “I’m going to have to kidnap you.”

“You’re what?” Kenma looked up at so sharply that he almost knocked his head on Kuroo’s chin. He blinked at him. “No, you’re most certainly not.”

He was thinking more slowly than usual, but Kuroo seemed to have taken leave of his senses entirely. The act of kissing was, as it turned out, extremely dangerous.

“I’m afraid so,” Kuroo said gravely. “If you refuse to go through with the marriage then what happens?”

“If I violate a signed agreement, it is grounds for Karasuno to sever trade agreements, at the very least,” Kenma said. “It could lead to outright hostility, at worst. Are you trying to prove my point?”

“But if you were to be kidnapped, through no fault of your own, of course, by the dastardly captain of the guard who had long been plotting such a betrayal…?” Kuroo prompted.

Realization dawned, and Kenma snorted aloud. It was the most ridiculous plan he had ever heard. “No one will possibly believe that,” he said. “My father, the men...you know they won’t. Not in a hundred years. Not in a thousand.”

“Of course they won’t,” Kuroo said, unfazed. “But we don’t need them to. We don’t need Nekoma, or Karasuno, for that matter, to believe anything. We only need them to have a lie to hide behind, until whatever happens, happens, and it ceases to matter either way.”

Kenma thought it was rather a lot to assume that one alliance would render all consequences in the securing thereof null and void. But then again, his father was nothing if not pragmatic. If they won him Seijoh as an ally, Kuroo’s assumption that they might not be punished as harshly may not be unfounded.

And if they succeeded, they could placate Karasuno with a united southern front and an explanation for their departure that did not involve deliberately flouting a still-fragile treaty.

“You’re serious,” Kenma said slowly. “You really want to leave, and travel a hundred leagues into enemy territory on the fraction of a chance that Seijoh will agree to meet with us, and then the infinitesimally smaller chance that they will agree to fight with us?”

“We have an awful lot to lose by staying, and almost nothing by going,” Kuroo said, in what Kenma considered a clear oversimplification of the matter. “We have just under a fortnight before Shiratorizawa breaks the standstill and comes for us, one way or the other. We can travel to Seijoh and back in half that time. ”

“If we fail, we can’t come back at all,” Kenma pointed out.

“Then we shall have not to fail,” Kuroo said. His mouth curved up. “Does that mean you will come with me?”

Kenma considered for a moment. It was a ridiculous plan, but for all that he was having a surprising amount of trouble poking holes in it. It was clear Kuroo had been thinking about this for some time.

Even so, Kenma still wasn’t at all sure he had thought it through. “Whatever the reason for your plan, on the face of it you would be committing treason,” he said, sure he had found something Kuroo couldn’t counter. “Can you live with that?”

“I am sworn to protect the kingdom of Nekoma,” Kuroo said. It was clear he had been ready for this after all. “And I have every intention of continuing to serve that kingdom. It just happens that I can do so better, for the time being, outside the palace walls.”

“That all sounds very noble,” Kenma said with heavy irony. “It is still treason all the same. Your knight’s vows will be broken, your name ruined. Are you prepared for that?”

“It’s just a name,” Kuroo said.

“It was your mother’s name,” Kenma corrected. “You can’t tell me that won’t bother you. Besides, I promised her I would look after you, and letting you ruin your own reputation and all your prospects does not sound particularly like I will be upholding my promise.”

“She asked you to look after me?” Kuroo asked.

“Oh, now you’re listening?”

Kuroo was smiling so brightly it almost hurt to look at. “You see, she knew even before I did,” he said. “That I would always need you.”

Kenma could feel himself blush furiously.

“Besides, my oaths won’t be broken at all,” Kuroo said, before Kenma could admonish him for being romantic to deliberately change the subject from treason.

He retrieved his sword from the desk and unsheathed it, and before Kenma could say anything else he was knelt down on the ground, looking up at him with the blade balanced on both palms.

“Oh, no,” Kenma said, with a great deal of trepidation. “What are you doing?”

“Kozume Kenma,” Kuroo recited, “I become your faithful servant of life and limb and truth and earthly honors. Bearing to you against all those who love, move or die, in my name and the name of Nekoma.”

Kenma’s heart was in his mouth. Kuroo was repeating words Kenma had first heard him say years ago, kneeling before the king with the rest of the new knights in the great hall.

But back then he had been looking at the ground, and now he was looking only at Kenma, and he was saying the oath every bit as solemnly as if it really counted.

He was staring so intently that Kenma quite forgot himself for far longer than necessary before he remembered to say the appropriate words in answer. “I accept your oath and will see it upheld, in this life and the next,” he said. He followed this with, “You’re quite sure about this?” as Kuroo stood again and sheathed his sword. “This is what you want?”

“Leaving, or you?” Kuroo asked, and Kenma blushed again. “I am very sure of both.”

Kenma wanted to ask him how he was so sure, when Kenma had never in his life been sure of anything.

“I’ve been yours to command for all these years,” Kuroo said, as if reading his thoughts. “All you ever had to do was ask.” He tipped Kenma’s chin up, gently, gaze intent. “But you do have to ask, Kenma. I won’t be yet another person taking choices away from you. If this isn’t what you want, if you’re not sure, you have to tell me.”

For a long moment, Kenma didn’t think he could. He felt frozen in place. It was too much. To ask was to claim far more of Kuroo than he had any right to.

And then he realized that Kuroo had been very honest with him, tonight and always, and he owed it to him, after all this time, to be honest in return.

“I want to go with you,” Kenma said. He swallowed around the dryness in his throat and went on, letting go at last of the words that he had kept locked up so carefully for so long. “I want you to stay with me always. I don’t want you to ever leave again.”

Kuroo smiled beautifully. “As you wish,” he said. He pressed a kiss to Kenma’s forehead and then drew back. “Now, this is all for nothing unless we can actually get out of the palace. I don’t imagine it will be too difficult, since it is very late and it’s not as if--”

“Captain!” someone shouted through the doors, and then hammered upon them. “Wake up! The prince is missing! He’s not in his rooms!”

Kuroo looked back at Kenma, who remembered, far too late, that he had been meant to meet the tailor in his rooms to alter the expensive wedding clothes that he was still wearing. He had forgotten he had them on, scratchy and uncomfortable as they were.

“You don’t imagine it will be too difficult?” Kenma prompted, and Kuroo gave him a very put-upon look.

“I’ll dress and be right out,” Kuroo called, and turned back with his hands on his hips. “You see the problem you have caused?”

“The problem I have caused?”

“Yes, well, you fell asleep in my room,” Kuroo said.

“You didn’t tell me you loved me seven years ago,” Kenma said neutrally. “I feel this is your responsibility.”

“We don’t have time to argue about this,” Kuroo said, “Although it is definitely your fault. Come now, we have to move quickly. They’ll be blockading the road soon if they think you’re no longer in the palace.”

“I can hardly go in these,” Kenma said, gesturing to his own garments. “And I cannot go back to my own rooms, now.”

“I’ll find something to fit you.” Kuroo cast around, then stepped closer and began to undo the laces at Kenma’s throat with deft fingers. “Here, let me help.”

“You’re blushing,” Kenma observed.

Kuroo was. He shushed him, cheeks pink, and unlaced the tunic until it was loose enough to pull off up over Kenma’s head. He smoothed Kenma’s mussed hair back down, gaze lingering. Kenma felt warm under his scrutiny but they had little enough time as it was so he said, “Kuroo,” and Kuroo blinked and said, “Right.”

He moved back to his dresser and began pulling clothing out of it. “It’s a shame we can’t risk getting your own things,” he said, “But these should fit you well enough.”

What he handed Kenma turned out to be a plain shirt, which was too big but tucked manageably into the trousers that Kuroo handed over next. They fit far too well, considering how much taller and broader Kuroo was. “Were these yours when you were fifteen?” Kenma asked dubiously, and Kuroo grinned and said, “Thirteen.”

Kuroo was dressing too, in similarly unremarkable garments without Nekoma’s heraldry or colors. He left off his armor -- even the practice variety would be noteworthy and instantly recognizable while traveling, and they did not need to draw undue attention to themselves, although Kenma still felt uneasy about him being so unprotected.

For the same reason, he shook his head at Kuroo’s offer to stop by the training grounds to get him a sword. “Only knights and nobility would carry a sword like that,” he said. “You should have yours, of course, that can’t be helped, but I’m not good enough with one to make the risk worth it. I’ll take a knife, if you have one.”

Kuroo did have one, and Kenma slid it into his belt and wrapped the cloak Kuroo handed him around himself.

When he looked up from pulling his boots back on he found Kuroo gazing at the painted shield hanging on the wall, the panther reared up on its hind legs against a gold and crimson background.. Kuroo caught him watching and smiled faintly. “I know I can’t bring it,” he said, as if dismissing a foolish whim, something unimportant.

“I’m sorry,” Kenma said, so that he would know it wasn’t.

“Don’t be,” Kuroo said. He sounded far surer than Kenma felt. “I’ll be back for it.”

Kuroo reached out to lift off his crown and was going to set it aside, but Kenma stopped him. “We may need that,” he said, and Kuroo didn’t question it, tucking the circlet into a pack with the few other things they were bringing along.

“There’s nothing for it,” Kuroo said once they were both dressed and ready, ear pressed to the door so that he could hear the other guards hurrying by. “I can’t possibly get you out through the palace. You’ll have to go out the window. It’s not so far down, and the ivy grows thick enough that it should hold. I’ll go out normally, as if I’m helping with the search.”

Kenma nodded. “I’ll meet you at the stables.”

*

The palace was chaos. All of Nekoma was out by the time Kenma’s feet touched earth beneath Kuroo’s window, and many of the knights from Dateko and Karasuno as well.

Fukurodani, who had still been in the process of leaving, now found their passage blocked with absolutely no warning. To make matters worse, they had been caught half in and half outside of the walls, rendering the whole situation altogether a mess. Kenma had never heard so much shouting, even during a melee.

He kept to the shadows, staying pressed close to the outer stone wall most of the way to the stables.

Since the Fukurodani horses had already been led out, many of the stalls toward the front were empty, but Kenma noticed Aone’s massive white draft horse prick its ears up at him, and Shouyou’s ruddy-colored pony woke immediately and attempted to force itself out of its stall to get to him, either to snap at him or to inspect him for food, Kenma couldn’t be sure.

The stall at the end where Kuroo’s great black destrier was kept was vacant. Instead, the animal was outside in the aisle, reins tied firmly around one of the hooks. She was already blanketed, saddled, and ready to go, ears swiveling towards Kenma as he approached.

There was no way Kuroo had beaten him here, and there were few other people comfortable enough with the horse to have readied it for a trip. Save the servants, who were otherwise occupied, Kenma could only think of three -- Nekomata, Kai, and Yaku -- and only one who, despite his regular scolding about Kuroo spoiling his horse rotten, would have brought the carrots that she was still munching.

Nekomata had been in the stables, and recently.

It was possible, of course, that he was only being pragmatic, since a search party was likely to be sent out soon and he had known the soldiers would need their horses. But Kai’s bay mare was chewing quietly in her stall, and Yaku’s spotted courser appeared to be sound asleep despite the ruckus.

Kenma’s own dappled rouncey huffed at him, and he patted her nose absently, still thinking. If Nekomata had -- somehow, inexplicably -- known Kuroo would be leaving tonight, why on earth had his response been to help him do it rather than to stop him?

There was a crunching of boots on hay at the open doorway, and Kenma tensed as he turned but it was only Kuroo, throwing back his hood. “They’re splitting up into groups to search the orchard and block the road out,” he said. “We have to go, and quickly.”

He stopped dead at the sight of the horse. “How--”

“Nekomata,” Kenma said. He was sure enough not to phrase it as a guess. “Perhaps our plan wasn’t so subtle as we wanted to think.”

Kuroo looked stunned for a moment, and then his face broke into a broad smile. “Well how about that,” he murmured, approaching the horse and untying her from the stands.

Kenma thought it likely, for all the nonchalance Kuroo had expressed about the subject of treason, that he found it heartening to know someone he loved and respected so much might be on their side, against all odds.

Kuroo caught Kenma watching the horse in trepidation and said apologetically, “It would only arouse suspicion if we took your horse as well. Not a very convincing kidnapping.”

“I know,” Kenma said, but still looked wistfully back at the stalls. His own horse was much smaller and milder, and while Kuroo’s had never seemed to mind him particularly, she was still very large. “We will need to buy one at the next town over, so she doesn’t have to carry us both to the border.”

They paused at the doors to the stables, and Kuroo peered out through the slight gap he had left. He muttered a curse. “I thought there would be a clearer path out of the palace, but they moved far more quickly than I had thought,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at Kenma. “It makes the most sense to separate again, but you will have to be very careful.”

“I suppose that is what you get, for training them so well,” Kenma said. “And I am always careful.”

Kuroo huffed a laugh of acknowledgment. “I’ll try to cause a distraction so that you can slip out the south gate,” he said. He clicked to the horse, leading her out towards the doors. “Then I can meet you there.”

As it turned out, Kuroo did not need to cause a distraction at all, because one was already well underway as Kenma peered out from behind the shrubs near the southern gate, furthest from the scrum of people and horses currently trying to leave through the northern.

“Get these horses under control,” a guard was snapping. “Someone is going to get hurt.”

“I could if not for all of the yelling and torches,” Akaashi said coldly, wheeling his horse around. He was attempting to guide two riderless horses as well, laden with the belongings Fukurodani had brought with them. The tableau suggested they had bolted, and he had only just got them back under control. “You’re panicking them. If you hadn’t noticed, we are trying to round them up now.”

As if to prove his point, one of the horses, ears flat to its head, snapped at the guard close enough to his nose to make him step back hastily. The animal then shied away, jerking free of Akaashi’s grip on the reins.

It made very little sense, in Kenma’s estimation. Akaashi was the second in command of the royal army, and the horses in question had been on the front lines of battle more than once. It was improbable at best that some running and shouting had made them impossible to direct.

In fact, looking around, if he didn’t know better, Kenma would say that Akaashi -- whom he had never once seen lose control of a situation -- wasn’t making any attempt to rein them in, at all.

He was still arguing dispassionately with the knight when Kenma slipped past, out under the conveniently half-open gate and down the darkened path.

Kuroo met him in a matter of minutes, approaching at a trot and holding his hand out so that he could clasp Kenma’s and swing him up in the saddle behind him. “I don’t think we’ll be followed right away,” he said. “Not with that mess they have to clear up.”

Kuroo carefully guided the horse off the main path and down the slope into the shadow of the orchard.

It would not be the fastest course, but the main road offered no protection and they would be spotted immediately a mile in either direction. It was slower but safer to take advantage of the tree cover instead, while they were still in sight of the walls.

“I think Fukurodani knew what we were planning,” Kenma said, looking back at the gate. “Or at least Akaashi did.”

“I think he’s slightly too busy at the moment to be concerned with us,” Kuroo said, ducking to avoid a low branch. He held it aside for Kenma. There was a worn path through the trees, traveled by herds of sheep in spring and apple pickers in summer, and it was this which Kuroo was following.

“He’s accustomed to being busy,” Kenma said. “He has Bokuto to supervise.”

Before Kenma could say anything more, Kuroo pulled the horse up short, and gave a surprised laugh. “Do you know, I think you may be right after all,” he said, sounding highly amused. He leaned to one side so that Kenma could see what he was looking at.

One of Fukurodani’s horses, riderless but unmistakable with its blue and gold trimmed blanket, was standing beneath a nearby apple tree, chewing contentedly on something.

The fact that the white horse had clearly been readied for travel but was not with the company suggested it had bolted, although the horse’s current temperament and the unimpressed look it gave Kuroo’s horse as they approached did not imply it was particularly skittish.

A folded piece of paper was tucked into the bridle, and Kenma leaned over to free it and twitched the paper open. Good luck, was scrawled in heavy dark ink on the inside, and Kenma said aloud, “I am starting to think that we have far better friends than we deserve.”

There was a loud creaking and groaning of wood as the southern gate lifted, and Kuroo’s eyes snapped wide. That was far sooner than either of them had expected for pursuit to follow.

Kuroo clicked his tongue gently to his destrier, who agreeably circled around the stand of trees nearest them to put them entirely behind it, deeper into the shadows of the orchard and camoflaged by the leaves and branches next to the white horse, which still looked deeply unaffected by everything that was happening.

It was far from an ideal hiding spot. They had not made it nearly far enough from the road for safety, and could not risk attempting to distance themselves further now because every snapped twig and rustled leaf would carry clearly back to the road, even taking into account the ruckus from inside the walls.

Hopefully, their luck would hold and the dark would be enough to hide them, and hopefully whoever had been sent after them would follow along the main road, the logical path of a horse in flight, since no one could traverse the orchard but slowly.

Hooves sounded on the road, and the flickering light of torches. Voices were audible, easily picked out away from the shouting. “After everything, all that we have been through together, can you believe it has come to this?” someone asked, and that was Yaku. “Desertion? Treason?”

Kuroo did not flinch, but Kenma was sitting close enough that he could feel the tension running through him.

Kenma had tried to make him realize, in his rooms, what he was really risking. Kuroo cared more about honor than anyone Kenma knew. Faced with his own friends and soldiers, having the word treason thrown back in his face, it was going to be much harder to be cavalier about the consequences of leaving.

Still, Kenma was more than a little affronted at Yaku’s tone. He had not thought that he, of all people, would be so quick to believe the ruse. Yaku was both deeply pragmatic and fiercely loyal, and those traits combined meant he would always be the hardest to trick.

Perhaps Kenma had misjudged how likely the others would be to believe a betrayal, even from such an unlikely quarter.

“We can rest easier knowing we’ve put the crown princes under guard,” Kai’s voice came, steady as ever. “No one can get to them if they try.”

That, at least, was fortunate: Lev, who was a disaster in training but surprisingly useful in a fight, when he wasn’t thinking about it too hard, would not be anywhere in their way and would have no opportunity to ruin everything.

And Tobio was single-minded enough, and formidable enough with a sword, that Kenma felt relieved knowing he would not be out looking for them as well.

“I’m going to check along the treeline,” Yaku called, and Kenma went very still as he heard the small horse approach, picking through the undergrowth. She snorted quietly as she was briefly distracted by something, likely one of the over-ripe apples underfoot that hadn’t been deemed fine enough for picking.

The torch Yaku was carrying lit up the trees around them, growing brighter as he drew nearer and casting skeletal shadows. In just seconds, he would round the bend in the path and see them.

There was nowhere for them to go, and no chance they could outrun Yaku’s courser at a short range. But the clopping footsteps stopped as the horse was drawn up short of their hiding spot, and there was nothing for a long moment, just the sound of continued conversation between the men on the road.

Then, into the stillness, Yaku hissed, “By any god you like, please do a better job of hiding than this. You’ll make us look terrible.”

Kenma startled. Kuroo whipped his head around to stare at Kenma, wide-eyed, as Yaku said something else angrily under his breath and murmured to his horse, and then there were the clear sounds of them both picking their way back up to the main road, the glow from Yaku’s torch fading and casting them back into darkness.

“No sign of a fresh trail,” Yaku called. “He must have stuck to the road for speed’s sake. We’d do best to ride hard to see if we can head them off.”

“I for one always suspected this might happen!” Tora yelled back, so loudly he could undoubtedly be heard from the walls, if not all the way from Dateko. “Tetsurou always was an untrustworthy scoundrel, I knew it all along. I should have slain him when I had the chance!”

Kuroo’s back was shaking. Kenma had to stuff his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing aloud.

“I rather think they’re enjoying themselves,” Kuroo whispered ruefully.

Once the riders were distant enough that they were no longer in danger of being overheard, Kenma dismounted and switched over to ride the Fukurodani horse -- which twitched its ears at him as if considering but gave no sign it objected to his presence -- and followed along behind Kuroo.

They made their way through the orchard, traveling diagonally out from the straight line of the road, and after nearly half an hour of slow, deliberate travel emerged out near the fields, unharvested wheat swaying rain-damp and golden under the moonlight.

“That’s us clear for a while,” Kuroo said, glancing back at the minimal cover of the trees. “If Yaku’s led them off along the main road, they won’t double back to look here until they’ve realized.”

“If there is in fact anyone who is not in on it left to realize,” Kenma said dryly. “Lev, probably, which is I’m sure why they locked him up. I do shudder to think of what they might have done to the Karasuno soldiers to keep them out of the way. Who would have thought they all love you enough to playact for your sake?”

“Yours as well, don’t forget,” Kuroo said, grinning back at him over one shoulder. Kenma made a face at him.

“Stop!” someone shouted.

The word echoed off the trees behind them, and Kenma’s heart plummeted as he realized that there was definitely someone who was not in on the pantomime, after all.

Shouyou emerged from the swaying wheat, on foot, sword in hand. He was panting. He must have run all the way from the palace. Kenma had no idea how he had known to head them off here; if it was a very lucky guess or a very unfortunate accident.

Kuroo recovered from his surprise more quickly than Kenma. “Stand aside, little knight,” he said, and reined his horse back so she wouldn’t step on him. “You won’t stop us, and you’ll only hurt yourself.”

Shouyou looked uncertainly past Kuroo, at Kenma. Kenma, who was seated astride his own horse and looking distinctly not kidnapped. Shouyou would never expect deception, but even he couldn’t fail to recognize it when it stared him in the face.

“I don’t understand,” Shouyou said, looking desperately caught between honor and heart. “What are you doing?”

There was no plausible lie Kenma could think of to explain this away. And he knew the truth would be found an unacceptable alternative.

Kenma handed the reins of the white horse over to Kuroo and dismounted, so that he and Shouyou were on a level. Shouyou’s eyes were wide and upset, his mouth set. He backed up a step as Kenma approached, holding up a hand. As if Kenma might be a threat.

“Please understand, Shouyou,” he began, but Shouyou was shaking his head, too rapidly. Kenma thought perhaps not because he didn’t understand, but because he did. He did, and didn’t want to.

Shouyou’s world was black and white, and didn’t allow for shades of grey. Kuroo and Kenma were his friends, but they were doing something wrong. Something that could, in his reckoning, very directly hurt Karasuno.

If they were going to make him choose between Nekoma and Karasuno, it was very obvious which choice he was going to make. It wasn’t going to be a choice at all.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Kenma said next.

“I don’t want to hurt you either,” Shouyou said, eyes bright like hammered bronze. “But I cannot let you go.”

Shouyou was going to sound the alarm, no matter what Kenma said. Kenma could see it written all over his face. He was a good knight, too good. No matter whether he wanted to let them go or not, he was right. He couldn’t.

They had only a handful of seconds, which was not enough to stop him. Not unless Kenma were to draw the knife at his belt and strike him down with it, and he was not willing to do that. “Kenma,” Kuroo murmured, a clear warning. His horse shifted from one foot to the other, uneasy.

Kenma watched resolution form on Shouyou’s face. Watched him raise his sword and shift his feet into a defensive stance, one of the ones Kuroo had taught him only days ago. Watched him release the sword with one hand to reach for the horn hanging from his belt.

Kenma still hadn’t made up his mind what he was going to do, and now it was going to be too late.

And then, of a sudden, it wasn’t.

Someone materialized out of the wheat behind Shouyou and clapped a cloth-covered hand over his mouth. Shouyou’s eyes went wide and he scrabbled for freedom, clawing at his attacker’s hands to try and pry them free, but too quickly his eyelids fluttered closed and he went limp.

The person holding him gently lowered him to the ground and then straightened back up. Even in armor, he moved like a shadow.

“Well?” said Tsukishima. He looked from Kuroo to Kenma, and made no move to draw his sword. He looked almost bored by the proceedings. “Are you going, or not?”

“Why?” Kuroo asked him. He looked stunned.

“Hinata never sees the bigger picture,” Tsukishima said. He crouched to hold a palm near Shouyou’s mouth to check that he was breathing, and then straightened up again. “If he raises the alarm out here, Karasuno will have no choice but to stop you.”

The moon had crept out from behind the clouds above them, and from the tips of his fair hair to his armored feet, he fairly shone.

Tsukishima made a dismissive hand gesture, mouth quirking with dark humor. “We will all likely die, or perhaps we will be fortunate and only some of us will die, and the rest can wait to die on the battlefield in some months’ time, once the negotiations we spent the past two years agreeing upon are rendered null and void for good and all by your actions.”

The accusation was as stark as it was fair, and Kenma did not flinch from it.

“I’m not getting caught up in another war because two nobles couldn’t follow some very simple rules,” Tsukishima said.

He stepped over Shouyou’s prone form, using a dry corner of the alcohol-soaked cloth to polish his glasses before tucking it away beneath his armor.

“The previous one lasted half my lifetime,” he went on. “You know there are still estates on the outskirts of Karasuno that haven’t been rebuilt yet? Acres of forest your fathers and uncles razed to the ground. You may be willing to cast that aside so lightly, but I am not.”

“We’re doing nothing lightly,” Kuroo said, holding the Fukurodani horse steady so Kenma could climb back into the saddle. “And we will come back, that is a promise. But you have our thanks.”

The clouds were shrouding the moon again and they were cast back into shadow, but Kenma still saw Tsukishima smile, a flash of white in the dark. “I don’t want or need your thanks.”

“You’ll be charged with treason if you’re found out,” Kenma said, staring down at him, still perplexed by this timely aid from such an unexpected quarter. He didn’t say it because he thought the knight didn’t know, but rather because he thought, with the gravity of the situation, it ought to be said.

“I know,” Tsukishima said. He looked down at Shouyou again, expression gone opaque. “I cannot protect Karasuno in his way, but I will protect it in mine.”

“And when he wakes and tells them what he saw?” Kenma asked.

“I will tell them he must have been mistaken,” Tsukishima said smoothly. “Hinata so often is.”

His gaze moved from Kenma to Kuroo. “You have some gall, you know,” he said, tilting his head back to look up at him. His eyes were gleaming behind the glass. “All your talk about being stronger together.”

“Aren’t you only proving that I was right?” Kuroo asked.

“We’ll see,” Tsukishima said, and then removed his spectacles again. Mildly, as if they were discussing the weather, he said, “Make it a good one.”

“I am sorry about this,” Kuroo said, and then hit him full across the face.

Once he had dismounted to check that both unconscious knights were lying as comfortably as could be hoped, were breathing normally, and had not fallen dangerously near any rocks, Kuroo straightened up. “No turning back now, I suppose.”

Kenma was staring back at the turrets visible over the tops of the trees, cut darker black against the night sky. It took a moment to recall his attention, and when he did so Kuroo was watching him, expression thoughtful.

“Second thoughts?” Kuroo asked. His tone was light, but Kenma wasn’t fooled.

“A little late for those,” Kenma said, before seeing his brow furrow and realizing that Kuroo was waiting -- patiently as ever -- for a real answer. “Several,” he amended. “But not about you.”

“We will come back,” Kuroo said softly, as usual discerning the direction of Kenma’s thoughts without him having said a word. He came to stand beside the white horse and covered Kenma’s hand on the reins with his own. “Have I ever broken a promise?”

Kenma dropped his gaze from Nekoma to Kuroo, who was watching him with warm gold eyes, looking like everything Kenma had ever called home. “Not since I can remember,” he answered, a truth so obvious he didn't have to give it any thought. He nodded. “Very well.”

Kuroo kissed his hand before releasing it, and Kenma felt vaguely like he might become flustered again so he shooed him away and nudged his heels into the horse’s sides. “Come on, then. We have a long way to go, and had better be on our way before they happen across us again. I am concerned Taketora will over-commit to his role and kill us both on sight.”

Chapter Text

“We can’t stay in Fukurodani long,” Kuroo said, the morning of the day after they had left Nekoma. “It will be the first place they look.”

When he didn’t receive an answer, Kuroo glanced up.

Kenma had his chin propped in one hand and had been studying him, cut against the morning light streaming through the window. Kuroo raised one eyebrow, and Kenma blinked. “What were you saying?”

“You were staring at me,” Kuroo said.

“Was not,” Kenma muttered, but Kuroo said, with growing delight, “Kenma, were you staring at me because you love me?”

“I was staring because your hair looks ridiculous,” Kenma grumbled, and tried to retreat under the covers.

In actuality he had been staring because he’d been struck all at once by how handsome Kuroo was, with his hair mussed from sleep and barely dressed, but he certainly was not going to tell him that.

Kuroo followed him and bundled him up, blankets and all, into his arms. “I love you too, but please focus, Kenma,” he said seriously, and kissed Kenma on the mouth. “This is extremely important.”

“I’ve decided I don’t love you,” Kenma said. He pushed at Kuroo’s face. “I take it back.”

“I don’t,” Kuroo said, with the breathtaking sincerity that kept leaving Kenma at a loss for words. His eyes were shining. “I won’t ever take it back.”

Kenma muttered something inarticulate, blushing furiously again, until Kuroo consented to drop him back into the bedclothes.

Kuroo was being extremely smug now, Kenma thought, for someone who had very earnestly attempted to book them two separate rooms upon their arrival at the inn on Fukurodani’s northern border the night before.

He had woken horribly early, of course, despite the late hour of their arrival and the fact that they had been riding for nearly a full day and night in order to get out of Nekoma. Kenma had done his best to sleep through the rustling of papers and thoughtful noises until the sun climbed higher in the sky.

They could not chance being seen by someone who might recognize them, and so they remained in the small room the whole day as the shadows shrank and then lengthened in turn, trying to plot the best course forward.

*

“Stop looking at me that way,” Kenma warned on the steps down to the tavern for dinner that evening. “It will attract attention.”

“This is how I’ve always looked at you,” Kuroo said, sounding amused and entirely unrepentant. “And as far as anyone here knows, I have every right to.”

Kenma thought about the first part of this statement for a moment and realized, somehow, it was true. He could feel the flush heating his cheeks again. It was truly the most annoying habit he had ever had the misfortune of gaining. Kuroo looked overly pleased every time, which made it significantly worse.

“Are you thinking about how much you love me again?” Kuroo asked.

“I’m thinking how unlikely it is that my father didn’t have you banished years ago,” Kenma said, poking him until he continued on down the stairs, “If you have always been as obvious as you are being now.”

Kuroo went to buy them dinner, and Kenma claimed the furthest end of one of the long rough-hewn tables, closest to the fire and furthest from everyone else.

“We should get out of Fukurodani as quickly as possible and go through Dateko,” Kenma said, resuming the argument they had been having all day without preamble, once Kuroo had returned with bowls of stew and a loaf of bread. “It’s closest, and we can hide in the mountains.”

“We can die in the mountains,” Kuroo said, with what Kenma deemed a needless amount of dramatics. He passed over one of the bowls and half the bread. “The coldest winter Nekoma’s ever had doesn’t come close to a Dateko summer.”

He shook his head. “Besides, there are no gaps in the wall, and no way on earth we could pass unnoticed. King Koganegawa can’t risk losing a century of goodwill to harbor us against your father’s wishes. We should continue on through Fukurodani for as long as possible, staying close to the border anywhere we can.”

Kuroo was right, unfortunately. For all that Dateko had weathered its own scandal only last year -- the youngest prince, Kanji, had relinquished his land and titles in order to marry one of their royal knights -- the king was not of a temperament to indulge such behavior where he did not have to.

But that only left one option, and it was one he had no faith in at all.

“You already agreed to it,” Kuroo had protested earlier, exasperated. “Under duress,” Kenma had corrected. “I still think it’s an awful plan.”

He could see the map of the east in his mind’s eye now, the long line south that led to their ill-advised destination. Seijoh, who no one had heard from in months. Seijoh, who Kenma’s father had been sure would help no one but themselves.

“Has it at all occurred to you that upon our arrival in Seijoh we might be immediately arrested and held for ransom until my father sends someone to collect us?” Kenma asked. He lowered his voice still further as someone sat down opposite them. “Or, we might get truly lucky and both be executed on the spot.”

Kuroo shushed him. “Seijoh isn’t our enemy,” he said, after glancing around them. “And you’re being difficult on purpose.” He shifted so that he had one leg on either side of the bench, turning inwards toward Kenma and effectively blocking out anyone who might be attempting to listen. “I think expecting our heads to end up on a pike as the result of a simple diplomatic request is a bit dramatic, don’t you?”

“They’re Karasuno’s enemy, and Dateko’s, or did you forget? That makes them ours,” Kenma said, unmoved. “I know it’s what you’re set on, but it is a gamble. I have yet to hear anything to quantify why it is one you have deemed worth taking.”

“They’re Nekoma’s best chance, which you well know or you would not have agreed to come, for one thing,” Kuroo said. “And for another, while Dateko or Fukurodani would feel obligated to turn us over to your father if we asked them for help, Seijoh will not. They have no ties to us at all, and may have some leniency when it comes to flouting rules and breaking tradition.”

At Kenma’s questioning expression, he quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Do you mean to tell me you don’t know the story?”

Kenma gave him a wary look. “What story?”

“The story of how Seijoh was founded,” Kuroo said.

“Oh, of course I know that,” Kenma said dismissively. “Prince Oikawa left Kitagawa before its fall with a small company of men and they built a new kingdom out of old Aoba Johsai. They pushed Shiratorizawa out of the territory and claimed sovereignty.”

Kuroo gave him a look which suggested he was deeply disappointed in him. “You’re listing the facts, not the story.”

Kenma sighed. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me the story?”

Kuroo grinned. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

He slid still closer to Kenma as a group of Inarizaki rangers crowded onto the bench next to them, spilling ale all over the place. They were talking loudly about something, which, it transpired a moment later, was the mermaid they had seen while hunting a boar through the forest.

“’Twasn’t a mermaid,” one of them said grouchily, in the tone of someone who had been saying it for some time. “It was just a man, and you’re a lot of superstitious fools.”

“With those teeth?” another protested, holding up a heavily bandaged hand. One of the other men shuddered.

“I would rather hear about the mermaid,” Kenma told Kuroo, whose lap he was almost sitting in at this point because of how little space Kuroo had left him on the bench. Kuroo shushed him soundly.

“When King Oikawa of Seijoh was still Prince Oikawa of Kitagawa,” he began in an undertone, and Kenma noted ruefully that he did have a lovely voice for storytelling, “His father set terms that anyone who could beat the king’s champion in single combat would have the prince’s hand and half the kingdom. You can imagine how fast word spread.”

Kitagawa, before its fall, had been one of the richest provinces across the Seven Kingdoms. Its roots ran deep with natural gold. To have half the kingdom, and the chance to marry a prince besides? “I can,” Kenma said, although it seemed to him a very old-fashioned sort of contest.

“Royalty came from thousands of miles away. Princes and kings and emperors’ sons from across the sea, renowned warriors in their own lands. And the king’s champion defeated them all. A month of this passed, with no change. And then one day, the champion had won his latest fight and his opponent had only just been carried out unconscious when a new challenger appeared at the edge of the crowd, dressed all in armor.”

Kuroo’s lilting voice was very soothing alongside the flickering of the fire. “He wore colors no one recognized, and gave a name no one knew. He insisted that he was the King of Aoba Johsai, only there hadn’t been a king in Aoba Johsai for a century. But he presented valid papers and according to the terms of the contest could not be turned away, and so the fight began.”

“Did he win?” interrupted the man sitting across from them, leaning in and looking fascinated. Kenma was startled and somewhat bothered by the stranger’s insertion into their quiet conversation, especially because he had gotten caught up in the narrative despite himself.

He supposed it would only be more suspicious to ask him to mind his own business, though, when they were for the moment -- fortunately -- discussing nothing of consequence.

“Not only did he win,” Kuroo said, warming to the audience, “Once he had, he stood in the center of the arena and cast off his helm to reveal that he was none other than Prince Oikawa of Kitagawa, dressed up in borrowed livery.”

Kenma had suspected as much from the beginning, and told Kuroo so. Kuroo shushed him again.

“The prince had grown weary of the game and decided to end it on his own terms,” he went on. “But that, it turned out, was far from the whole story. In front of his father, the kingdom, and all those assembled, he announced that as the winner and according to the terms of the agreement, he would marry whomsoever he chose, and that the one he chose was the king’s own champion.”

“No,” the stranger across the table gasped, so dramatically he almost upset his goblet of wine.

“As the story goes, his father said he would never allow it and swore to separate them forever, and so the two of them ran off that same night,” Kuroo said. “No one knew what had become of them until a fortnight later when they resurfaced at the edge of King Ushijima’s territory. They built a new kingdom free from Shiratorizawa’s rule, and that’s where they still are today, happily married.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kenma said, biting into a piece of nut bread. “And cannot possibly be true.”

“A knight and a prince running off together? It does seem improbable,” Kuroo said, mouth twitching. Kenma gave him a look. He had been referring to the highly unlikely idea that anyone would go to such unnecessary dramatics to be free of an engagement, when there were many simpler and more rational means of doing so.

“Oh, that’s terribly romantic,” the man across from Kuroo said, brown eyes huge and enrapt.

He twisted in his seat, tugging on the sleeve of a second man, who was at that moment returning to the long table with two bowls of stew, both of which lurched perilously as the man was pulled off balance by his companion. “Hajime, did you hear the wonderful story this kind traveler was telling?”

“Why would you do that when you can see what I’m carrying?” the one named Hajime sighed. He elbowed the first man until he moved over enough to make space for both of them on the bench. “What story?”

“The story of King Oikawa of Seijoh and his consort, the king’s champion. Oh dear, I quite missed his name,” the first man said, and looked expectantly at Kuroo to supply it.

Before Kuroo could answer, Hajime snorted. “Oh, that story.” He sounded unimpressed. “I’ve heard it. I heard the king’s champion let the prince win.”

Kuroo looked grievously offended.

Hajime’s companion looked thoughtful. “You mean because he was so in love with his prince he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him, even by sheer luck, as he was clearly outmatched? You know what, that does sound likely. But hush, he was telling a story.”

“That was all of it, or at least all of it I know,” Kuroo said with a polite smile. He did not appear to have forgiven the less talkative of the two travelers for so maligning his favorite romance.

“Well then, we will have to do something else to pass the time,” said the first man, who had evidently designated them as dinner companions quite without any warning at all. “My name is Tooru,” he said sunnily. “Do you like chess?”

Kuroo, who did like chess, just shook his head. Kenma shrugged one shoulder, and Tooru seemed to take that as hearty agreement. He pulled the board over between them and began to set up the pieces. It was a nice set, carved stone, and Kenma wondered if he had brought it with them.

It certainly didn’t look as if it belonged in the dingy tavern. Nor, Kenma noted with a cursory look at Tooru, was it the only thing.

Kenma eyed the two men more closely. They wore plain traveling clothes and bore no visible colors or sigils, but the fabric of their garments was fine enough that they could not be rangers. Merchants, perhaps, except that their cloaks lacked ornament, and Hajime sat like a soldier.

Kenma could even see the gleam of undulled silver at his waist when he shifted to reach across Tooru and pick up the water jug, noted the familiar way he moved to allow for a weight on his left-hand side. A sword, which no ranger would carry, and an expensive one at that.

It seemed perhaps they were not the only ones traveling in secret at this table. Kenma wondered what these travellers’ secret was.

“So, you’re from Nekoma,” Tooru interrupted his consideration, leaning forward and looking much too eager. He set the last white piece in its place and gestured to the board. “You may move first. Guests’ courtesy.”

It occurred to Kenma to deny their origin for safety’s sake, but he discarded the idea just as quickly as it had come. There were too many ways it could be proven, and it was hardly a damning truth by itself. Nekoma was right across the border from Fukurodani, after all, and the crossing was unrestricted. Half the visitors in the tavern might easily be from Nekoma.

“That’s a good guess,” Kenma said neutrally. Playing the game seemed easier than arguing against it, and so he moved a black pawn forward and wished Tooru would stop talking to them of his own accord. So, from the forbidding expression on his face, did Hajime.

“Not a guess,” Tooru said, eyes alight. “I have an ear for accents. You roll your R’s more than is customary in the rest of the realm.” He made a demonstrative sound, like purring.

Kuroo raised one eyebrow but said nothing, in favor of surveying the room around them. Kenma could tell he was still paying close attention.

Unexpectedly, Tooru used his first move to place a white pawn directly into Kenma’s way, altering the trajectory he had been planning to make.

In most cases, Kenma would have assumed it was a mistake. A careless opening move. But studying Tooru’s guileless face, he didn’t think so. He thought it was deliberate.

If he was right, it was an aggressive way of playing, and a risky one. Forcing Kenma to capture lesser players in order to move forward along a path the other man had chosen. He had to take the pawn, or leave his own piece open to be taken.

“But if you’re from Nekoma, surely you have heard the latest news!” Tooru said. He paid no attention at all to Kenma’s next move in favor of leaning forward and placing his palms flat on the table. “Terribly scandalous! One of the royal guards—”

“We’ve been away for a while,” Kuroo interrupted with a genial smile. “Only just coming back from a year abroad. So I’m afraid we haven’t heard anything from home in quite some time.”

“My mistake,” Tooru said, and frowned. He reached into his cloak pocket and withdrew something, holding it up so that they could see. “Strange, isn’t it, that you’ve been gone so long and yet still carry their currency?”

It was the coin Kuroo had paid the innkeep with, the gold gleaming just like Tooru’s dark eyes in the low, flickering light from the fireplace.

Kenma looked at Tooru, not at the coin; he didn’t feel like playing along with whatever pantomime this was, and he didn’t need to look to know that the heavy metal bore the stamped N and royal crest of Nekoma.

What he didn’t know was why Tooru found this so important, and why, if he really knew as much as his smile was suggesting, he was so determined to let them know it.

Kenma was still contemplating this when, with absolutely no warning, Hajime cuffed his partner upside the head. Tooru yelped and dropped the coin. Hajime caught it without looking, closing his fingers tight around it.

“I left you alone,” he said through his teeth, “for five minutes. You truly couldn’t contain yourself for five minutes?”

“How rude, when all I was doing is making friends!” Tooru rubbed the back of his head and gestured across the table to them in turn. “This is Kuroo, and Kenma,” he said, twinkling, and Kenma’s suspicion that he had been listening for longer than they had been aware was confirmed.

His brown eyes were wide and innocent as he went on, “Did you know, that’s the royal prince’s name? What a funny coincidence.”

Kuroo went very still, and Kenma curled fingers loosely around his wrist under the table in reassurance. If Tooru’s first implication hadn’t been subtle, this one was unmistakable.

“Leave them be,” Hajime said. There was a clear warning in his voice, and Kenma saw his eyes flick to their surroundings unconsciously, as if to check that no one was paying them any attention.

As if, perhaps, there was a reason past annoyance that he did not want his traveling companion to draw any further notice to them.

Who would possibly think to look for someone trying to hide in a shabby tavern miles from the capitol, Kenma had wondered, as soon as Tooru had made his gambit with the coin. Who, but someone who might have reason to be on guard?

“It’s not an uncommon name, I suppose,” Kenma said neutrally. He didn’t allow his tone to change a fraction. “Much like Hajime. For example, I believe the champion of Seijoh is called Hajime as well, isn’t he? Iwaizumi Hajime.”

“I thought you didn’t know the story,” Tooru said sweetly. His eyes glittered.

“I don’t,” Kenma said. “I know my lineage charts. In any case, it’s not a terribly remarkable name. Tooru, though, is less common up north.” He studied the board. “More common in the south, I think. You knew that story already?”

“Only the end of it,” Tooru said.

“I don’t like it as much as you do, I think, Kuroo,” Kenma said. “It seems cowardly, to run off and never look back instead of staying and fighting.” He tapped one stone piece against the table before moving it, pretending to be lost in thought. “Kitagawa fell later that same year, didn’t it?”

“It did,” Kuroo confirmed.

“So really, if you think about it, it was the founding of Seijoh on Shiratorizawa’s land that first caused Shiratorizawa to look north,” Kenma went on. “Imagine the loss that might have been avoided, if the prince of Kitagawa had only swallowed his pride and accepted his lot like everyone else.”

There was a sharp crack as stone knocked against stone. Tooru had moved his bishop with a touch too much force. “What an interesting interpretation,” he said, tone bright. His expression had not altered, but it looked markedly fixed now.

Kenma looked back down at the board, thoughts flitting through his head too quickly to categorize. His heart was beating faster, and his mouth felt dry.

It wasn’t proof, of course. It wasn’t anything near to it. But it was what he had been looking for: a hint. A hint indicating a conclusion so unlikely it ought to be impossible.

“I apologize, I seem to have wandered quite far from my point,” Kenma said. “What were we discussing? Oh, yes, names. Kenma and Hajime, they’re both common.”

He glanced over at Kuroo, trusting him to read his expression the way he always had. His hand was resting near Kuroo’s cup on the table, and he tapped a fingertip to the base of it. “The sword Iwaizumi Hajime carried, though, that was unusual,” he said. “Do you remember that, Kuroo?”

He picked up the black stone knight and considered the board for a moment before setting him down, a jump behind the now-decimated front line of white stone soldiers.

“I can’t quite recall,” Kuroo said, with his most thoughtful expression.

He reached for his cup and, instead, knocked Hajime’s goblet of wine over onto his lap.

Hajime reacted immediately, jerking backwards on the bench and stretching a hand out to try and catch the goblet. In the process, his cloak was drawn back from his sword, leaving it plain to see to anyone who might be watching.

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” Kuroo said smoothly. “A gold hilt bound in silver vines.”

His gaze drifted past the spilled wine dripping off the edge of the table, to the hilt of the sword Hajime was wearing and the delicate wrought silver leaves visible in the bare seconds before he swept his cloak back to cover them. “One of a kind, I heard. Terribly famous.”

For several seconds, no one moved. Then Tooru coughed a laugh. “That was clumsy of you,” he chided, righting the spilled goblet. “You might offer to buy us another one.”

The glare Hajime leveled at them was formidable.

The king’s champion defeated them all, Kuroo had said. Hajime did not look much older than Kuroo. If the story was true, he could not have been far past seventeen when Seijoh was founded. Kenma wondered how old he had been when he fought emperors’ sons fueled by something stronger than fear.

One of the men sitting next to them had taken notice of the sudden tension and looked vaguely concerned, and Tooru leaned toward him and whispered conspiratorially, “This traveler said he doesn’t believe in mermaids. My companion took offense.”

Once the rangers had resumed their conversation -- not without a scathing look at Kuroo -- Oikawa Tooru folded his hands on the table and said, “Well, then. What now?”

*

So this was the Wolf of Seijoh. The child king, Kenma’s father had called him. He did not look like a child.

He was dressed in neutral colors, with no crown or ornament to betray his status. Even in common clothes he looked like royalty, now that Kenma knew to look for it. He didn’t know precisely what it was. The aspect of command.

“I don’t know,” Kenma said. “What was your aim in beginning this whole charade?”

“I think I like you, Kozume Kenma,” Oikawa said, with an appraising look so intense Kenma had to work not to fidget under the weight of it.

Kenma didn’t believe him. He also didn’t think he liked Oikawa Tooru at all, and he suspected Oikawa knew it.

“In answer to your question,” Oikawa said generously, spreading his hands, “Consider it a general interest. I was merely curious as to how you came to be here, so far from home.”

“I was kidnapped,” Kenma said flatly. “I thought you had heard all about it.”

“Ah, yes. How terrible. It was brave of you to fight back. And so viciously, too.” Oikawa tipped his own head to one side, touching his throat demonstratively with a sharp smile. “Looks like you left a mark.”

Kuroo, whose collar was not high enough to fully cover the bruise teeth had left on the side of his neck, did not let his expression flicker, but pink spots of color rose in his cheeks.

Kenma barely glanced over at him. “I didn’t do that,” he said.

“Thank you, Kenma,” Kuroo said, even pinker. “For so stalwartly defending my honor.”

“Well, I didn’t. In any case, you have already made your point,” Kenma said to Oikawa, eyes on the board. “To keep belaboring it when we are all aware of the situation is extremely dull.”

“Oh, I see.” Oikawa moved his white stone knight forward. “You would like to speak plainly now?”

“If it’s not too difficult,” Kenma said. He looked from Oikawa to Iwaizumi. “You knew who we were. It wasn’t a guess.”

At the weighted pause that met the statement, he went on, wanting to confirm a suspicion. “You didn’t hear anything from Nekoma, did you? Word travels fast, but not that fast.”

Iwaizumi was the one to answer. “We passed through Nekoma’s central city two weeks ago,” he said. “You were out in the marketplace, and we saw you. We recognized you as soon as you sat down.”

Kenma remembered. He didn’t often visit the monthly market in town, because there were so many people and it was loud and bustling, but Kuroo had talked him into it that time because there was a bookseller he wanted Kenma to see.

It had been just days before everyone began to arrive for the wedding. Weeks ago. Had the two of them been traveling outside Seijoh for that long?

“Yes, well, I do still have an ear for accents,” Oikawa said, sounding slightly put out at having his trick explained. He moved his knight again. It looked careless, again. Kenma took it.

“You were passing through Nekoma from Seijoh? By way of where?” Kuroo asked in disbelief, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “It is no wonder that no one has been able to gain an audience for so many weeks. You weren’t ignoring messengers at all, were you? You simply couldn’t let anyone know you weren’t there.”

“My third and fourth in command do a passable royal impression, at a distance,” Oikawa said. “But it’s no good up close, as neither possesses either my incredible good looks or Hajime’s thunderous scow-ouch,” he complained, as Iwaizumi flicked his ear.

“Be honest,” Kuroo said to Iwaizumi. “You did let him win, didn’t you?”

“A dangerous lack of respect from someone whose fate we now hold in our hands,” Oikawa said, before Iwaizumi could answer. He cocked his head to one side. His rook captured one of Kenma’s black pawns. “Or did you not consider how much we could gain from turning you over? I am sure there is already a handsome reward being offered on both sides of the border.”

Kenma blinked at him. He didn’t flinch from the threat, although he was suddenly very aware of how many others there were in the tavern, and how outnumbered they would be were the situation to turn against them.

“You don’t need the money,” he said. “You have no motivation whatsoever to turn us in.”

“Perhaps not,” Oikawa said, and spread his hands. “Then again, perhaps I might feel it was my civic duty. Or I might let it slip just because whimsy struck me. If only you could be sure.”

“If you told our secret, we would tell yours,” Kenma said. He was growing frustrated by this conversation, by the unnecessary threats and subterfuge inlaid in every syllable. It felt like walking treacherous rocks above a wild sea. “Fukurodani has been our ally for a century. You are a foreign king who has snuck into their midst in secret. You have considerably more to lose from discovery than we do.”

Oikawa did not look afraid. His eyes drifted to Kuroo and then, pointedly, back to meet Kenma’s gaze. “I don’t know, Prince Kenma,” he said in a terribly soft voice. “I think we might have the same thing to lose, after all.”

He used his bishop to capture another pawn, shrugging indolently. “Besides, you can’t turn us in without revealing yourselves. I think they might let us go, if we handed over the missing prince of Nekoma.”

“Suppose no one turns anyone in, and we all go on with our lives,” Iwaizumi said, looking visibly at the end of his patience.

“A fair idea, but not before you answer the question,” Kuroo said. “What were you doing in Nekoma? What are you doing in Fukurodani? You have no friends here.”

“I don’t believe there are any laws in place barring one from travelling wherever in the free kingdoms one likes,” Oikawa said. “Whether or not one has friends there.”

“It’s your timing I find curious,” Kuroo said, and smiled in the incongruously vicious way that had often made strangers despise him. “You’ll forgive me, but it is somewhat hard to believe you left your kingdom alone and undefended, when you know Shiratorizawa is coming for it with all their strength.”

Unexpectedly, the color somewhat drained from Oikawa’s face. Kenma was surprised. Of all things he might have thought would earn a reaction, it would not have been a statement of the obvious.

“You don’t know much at all if you think the two of us being here means Seijoh is undefended,” Iwaizumi spoke up, eyes like flint.

Oikawa cleared his throat. “Besides, if anything, the kingdom is safer while we aren’t there,” he said lightly. “Ushijima won’t come for it.”

“Did he tell you that?” Kuroo asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” Oikawa said, holding Kuroo’s gaze as he moved another piece on the board. “He did tell me that.”

“And you decided to simply take his word for it?”

“Oh, yes,” Oikawa said. He was toying with the stolen coin in his free hand now, spinning it around on the table so that it caught the light from the fire and threw it back. “Ushijima is nothing if not a man of his word, and he doesn’t just want to take Seijoh. He wants to take it from me. You see, his father held an awful grudge, and he was under the mistaken impression that we settled Seijoh on land that belonged to him.”

“Didn’t you?” Kenma said. He knocked over Oikawa’s second knight.

There was a fleeting second where he thought Oikawa might strike him for saying it, prompted not by a motion or a word but by the look in his eyes. Whatever the reason, it was gone as quickly as it had come. The king’s hand stayed resting on the table.

“Aoba Johsai, in its time, was a free province,” he said in even tones. “It never answered to Shiratorizawa, and nor will we.”

“And yet Shiratorizawa still believes you took something from them.”

Oikawa moved his rook forward. His smile, this time, was bitter. “You can put your name on anything you like. It doesn’t make it yours.”

“Even if he promised, that’s a lot to take on faith,” Kuroo said, refusing to yield the point. “You’re a hundred miles away. Anything could happen in your absence.”

The coin stopped spinning. Oikawa let it fall and flattened his hand over it on the table, eyes downcast beneath golden-tinted lashes.

“I want you to come to me and beg for your kingdom on your knees, so that I can destroy it before your eyes,” he said, raising his gaze back to Kuroo’s. “That is what Ushijima said to me, the last time we met.”

He smiled brightly. “So no, Kuroo Tetsurou. I am not worried about leaving Seijoh for the time being, as you said, ‘undefended.’”

The silence that followed these words was fraught, and Oikawa sighed. “I know, it’s all very shocking. Who had any idea King Ushijima knew so many words?”

Kenma was impressed how much control Oikawa had over his reactions. It must have come with years of effort and training, and for all that, when he closed his hand around the coin his knuckles were still white.

“The story Kuroo told,” Kenma said. “Was it true? All that he said about your father, and the contest?”

Oikawa didn’t look at him, and didn’t answer. Iwaizumi gave Kenma a measured look, as if wondering why he would bring this up now.

“Your friend may have exaggerated some of the finer points,” he said. There were scars, fine and white, criss-crossing the fingers of his sword hand where it rested on the edge of the table. “But yes, it was.”

“Did Ushijima participate in it?”

“Wouldn’t you know it,” Oikawa spoke up then, tone light. “He meant to, but he arrived about a week too late.”

Kenma had assumed something of that nature, filling in the gaps between the information Oikawa and Iwaizumi had volunteered with everything he knew of Shiratorizawa.

It had been Ushijima the elder who had decided to direct all his time and wealth into expanding the kingdom outwards past its old borders, but the younger had taken up that goal in his stead and had pursued it with single-minded purpose ever since.

Kenma did not for a moment think, given all of that, that the former prince of Kitagawa’s decision to found his new kingdom where they had was a coincidental choice.

“That explains at least why you are not in Seijoh,” Kenma said. “Why are you in Fukurodani?”

Oikawa and Iwaizumi exchanged a glance, easy enough to parse. They were deciding how much of the truth to tell.

Kenma was surprised when Iwaizumi sighed heavily and withdrew a folded parchment from underneath his cloak, offering it to Kuroo. He hadn’t expected, the way the conversation was going, for either of them to volunteer any more information than they had already been forced to.

It made him suspect that perhaps whatever quest they were on was not going particularly well, after all.

Kuroo took the paper and unfolded it. Kenma leaned over to see a hasty drawing of a man with close-cropped hair and a scowl that must have been omnipresent enough that the artist had thought it necessary to commit to ink for identification purposes.

“One of our knights went rogue,” Iwaizumi explained. “There was a blood fever that passed through Seijoh a few months ago, and he did not come through it the same. We have been tracking him for weeks.”

Kenma jerked his head up to look at Kuroo, who was already looking back at him, expression grim.

No colors, and no shield, Bokuto had said only a few days ago, when telling them about the rogue knight they had encountered on their journey to Nekoma. And hadn’t Akaashi mentioned his odd behavior, more animal than human?

Kenma had blamed Nohebi out of habit, before forgetting about the matter entirely as it was buried beneath the many other more pressing issues at hand.

“We heard about this knight,” Kuroo told Iwaizumi. “He nearly killed a man near our borders a fortnight ago.”

“He’s not to blame for that,” Oikawa said, a touch too sharply.

“I didn’t say he was to blame for it,” Kuroo said. “I said he did it.” He handed the paper back. “Why would you come all the way out here for one knight? Why not send someone in your stead?”

“A worthy question,” Iwaizumi said into his tankard, and Oikawa jostled his elbow. Kenma, meanwhile, could not help a derisive sound at the implication that Kuroo would not have taken it upon himself to personally track down any one of their knights, had they gone missing.

They had once lost Lev in the wheat fields for half a day when he was six -- he had fallen asleep amongst the swaying stalks and his light hair had provided the perfect camouflage -- and eight-year-old Kuroo had mustered several grown men to a search party. He had been ready to scour the kingdom to find him.

“He is my responsibility,” was all Oikawa said as he folded the drawing back up and tucked it away beneath his shirt.

“So, we have now discussed at length why we are here,” Iwaizumi said, and narrowed his eyes at the both of them across the table. “Why are you?”

“Are you interested in running away and founding your own kingdom?” Oikawa interjected. “There’s a great amount of land directly to the north of Seijoh that you could have.”

“Karasuno?” Kuroo asked.

Oikawa’s features pulled into a thoughtful frown. “Oh, is that what that is?”

“We were actually looking for you,” Kenma said, because he saw no point in skirting around the issue now that they had finally arrived at some sort of point. “Not here,” he added, at their look of joint startlement. “We were traveling to Seijoh.”

“What a marvelous coincidence,” Oikawa said, looking as if he did not think it was, at all. “And why the interest in my kingdom?”

Kuroo looked around to make sure no one was listening, and leaned in. “We wanted to ask for your help,” he said, more seriously now that he seemed to have remembered that a meeting of this sort was in fact the point of their entire venture. “To stand with Nekoma, and Fukurodani, and the rest of the north, against Shiratorizawa.”

“Oh, of course, I see,” Oikawa said. He smiled pleasantly. “No.”

“No?” Kuroo repeated.

Oikawa frowned again. “Does it mean something different in Nekoma? I apologize. I will clarify. I am declining your request.”

“Why?” Kenma asked.

“I am a king, I don’t believe I need a reason. You think we will form an important political alliance just because you asked? We’re not Fukurodani.”

He moved another piece on the board, decisively, and clasped his hands together. “But very well. I am saying no on account of the fact that simply because you need our help, does not mean we need yours.”

Looking at him, Kenma was reminded vividly what Kuroo’s story had imparted about the contest Oikawa’s father had set. What Oikawa and Iwaizumi had, separately, confirmed.

It must have been terrible beyond imagining for the former prince of Kitagawa not to have any power over his own fate. It was what Kenma had always accepted of his own life, but he suspected that that sort of forbearance did not come so easily to Oikawa, and never had.

He had power now. He had the power, in what path he chose, to keep all of the Seven Kingdoms from falling to ruin. Kenma wondered if he knew that.

“Maybe you’re right, and you don’t need us,” Kenma said. “You are very talented. Nothing less would have kept you and your kingdom safe this long, I think, with Shiratorizawa breathing down your neck and enemies all around you. But even the strongest branch can only bear so much weight alone. What do you think will happen when you reach that point?”

“And what of you?” Oikawa murmured. His eyes flashed, and Kenma had a fleeting sense of danger, of being stared down by a predator. “Nekoma, Nekoma, lucky Nekoma. You think things can be as simple as that because you have only ever known what it is like to have friends everywhere, your whole life. You can’t imagine what it is like to have to survive without them.”

“Is that why you refuse an offer of friendship when it is extended?”

Oikawa’s laugh was as sharp and brittle as his smile. “You’re finally joining this war, but some of us have been fighting it for years, and we have been doing it alone. You will forgive me if I bristle now at the suggestion of friendship.”

“You will refuse an alliance that could save you in order to stand against Shiratorizawa alone, on principle?” Kuroo asked. “Is that really your plan?”

“Tell me something. How does Dateko feel about this extended olive branch?” Oikawa asked, leaning forward with his arms folded on the table. He cocked his head to one side, eyes bright and inquisitive. “How does Karasuno? I am sure, prior to offering an alliance upon which so much rests, you must have consulted them first.”

“They will agree,” Kenma said, when Kuroo didn’t. “They have no other alternative.”

“Grounds for a very stable friendship, I am sure,” Oikawa said, tone sardonic. “Not at all likely to fall apart in the first passing breeze. By the by,” he added. “Checkmate.”

Kenma looked down at the board. He had not been paying close attention since they began talking, but Oikawa was right. Nearly every single white piece was toppled over, but the white king was still standing, almost alone.

Oikawa had sacrificed the vast majority of his players in order to force Kenma’s king into a corner, and he had him well and truly trapped. There was no move Kenma could make to get free.

“In some places, they don’t consider that a win,” Kenma observed, after a moment. He indicated the white soldiers lined up on the table by his elbow. “You’ve lost too much.”

“In Seijoh, a win is a win,” Oikawa said. “Whatever you have to do to get it.”

Kenma did not have anything to say to that. He stared down at the decimated board instead, trying to reverse the moves made to determine where it had happened, where his king had first been lost.

A gust of cool air ruffled his hair lightly, welcome in the stuffy room. Someone had come into the tavern.

Kenma would have paid it no mind except that he saw, in his periphery, Oikawa’s eyes widen just a fraction. It was only the second genuine reaction Kenma had seen from him, the whole course of the conversation.

Around them, the room had gone strangely quiet.

Kenma turned on the bench to look over Kuroo’s shoulder and saw immediately the cause for the hush. He felt his heartbeat stutter -- from fear, or excitement, or some combination of the two -- before resuming its usual rhythm.

A knight in maroon and white, skin parchment pale and unbound hair almost crimson, was standing in the doorway. A riot of color in the dim room, and worryingly familiar colors at that.

Even if not for the ornate eagle wrought in gold over his breast, Kenma knew that livery.

The livery and, still worse, the glittering gold and amethyst ring hung around his neck. An obvious warning from a king not to kill his chosen messenger.

“Shiratorizawa,” a man whispered down the table. The murmur was being repeated throughout the tavern.

“Demon,” hissed someone else, further away, like a curse. The knight turned his head and looked directly at the speaker, an uncanny smile curving his mouth.

The man who had said it visibly cowered until the knight turned his attention elsewhere. He was decidedly not human, markedly not. He did not take any care to look more so.

But of course, the speaker had been wrong. The knight wasn’t a demon. He was a faerie.

*

Kenma had known King Ushijima had a fae knight. He had never thought to see him up close.

“What is he doing here?” Iwaizumi asked, barely moving his mouth. He had pulled his hood up over his head at once, and so had Oikawa. Unlike everyone else in the tavern, they didn’t look afraid generally, on principle. Their fear was sharper. Specific.

“He’s following you, isn’t he,” Kenma said, connecting all of the points already laid out for him with this new one that had just walked in the door. “That is what you meant, when you said you were sure Seijoh was better off without you. You’re drawing him out.”

“And doing a remarkable job of it, evidently,” Iwaizumi said under his breath. He glanced around them, even though Kenma knew he must have already realized too: there was only one exit save the one the knight had come through, and it was directly in his line of sight.

“He’s really half fae,” Kenma murmured, stealing another glance behind him. “I thought maybe it was only a rumor, for all that. How did Ushijima learn his true name?”

Oikawa looked back sharply, although Kenma had not intended to address the question to him. “Learn it? He didn’t learn it. He was told.”

“Told by whom?”

Oikawa looked incredulous that anyone could be so stupid. “By the knight himself, obviously.” At whatever he saw on their faces, he pulled a disdainful expression. “What, word up north is that he somehow tamed a faerie to his will? Honestly.”

“We have to go now,” Iwaizumi interrupted, and Oikawa nodded. “Best of luck with your endeavors, Nekoma,” he said with a small wave as the bench scraped back on stone, and Kenma thought oddly that he might mean it.

“But--” Kenma started. But they hadn’t gotten what they came for. But their plan had failed, and if it had failed that meant this had been for nothing. It meant they couldn’t go home. Now or ever.

“Let them go,” Kuroo said in an undertone. His tone was unhappy, but it was set. “We have no right to keep them.”

“What now?” Kenma whispered to him, as Iwaizumi and Oikawa made their departure, melting into the shadows at the edges of the room.

“You mean, speaking generally? I have absolutely no idea,” Kuroo said with a tense smile. “But for right now, we should avoid drawing any attention to ourselves until the fervor dies down, and then we should put as much distance between us and that knight as possible.”

That knight. The knight who had told King Ushijima his true name.

“But why would he tell him?” Kenma asked, more thinking aloud than because he truly expected an answer. He chanced a glance back at the knight—it wouldn’t draw attention, as everyone in the place was staring openly—and studied him.

“The way I heard it,” one of the rangers leaned over to whisper, “He showed up one winter at the palace gates and asked to see the king. He walked right into the throne room, bold as anything, and gave him his name to be commanded.”

The knight was humming something, seeming oblivious to the attention he was receiving. He picked up a glass off the counter and turned it over between his hands, long fingers inspecting and queer eyes bright with too much interest.

Kenma had thought, since first he had heard about him, that he had known what to expect. He had envisioned Ushijima’s faerie knight as a tethered dog; resentful and furious, bound to obey orders from a master he hated and snapping at the bars of an invisible cage with bared teeth.

The man before him, though, wasn’t anything like that at all. He didn’t appear to be upset by the present situation in the slightest. He was now trailing fingertips along the counter, making an odd, off-key whistling sound.

He gave him his name to be commanded.

But no faerie would do that, even half a faerie. He would be bound by the same ancient rules, full-blooded or no. His name was his freedom. His name was everything. From all that Kenma knew about the fae, they would protect their names under threat of torture. Under threat of death.

If King Ushijima knew the knight’s true name, he could make him do anything he wanted, without limit. It was a terrible power to have, and a far worse power to give someone.

It was an insane thing to do. It must be a story, nothing more.

“That’s not what happened,” one of the other rangers interrupted, sounding annoyed. It was the one who had had his hand bitten by a mermaid. “King Ushijima went into the forest and captured him using rope woven with iron. He fought to get free for four days, and on the fifth day he gave in and offered up his name to be released.”

“Actually, it wasn’t like that at all,” said someone else, and Kenma froze as the faerie knight leaned in across the table, looking eager.

Kenma hadn’t seen him sit down. He had not, in fact, seen him move even one step from the counter, across the room from them.

One moment he had been there and now, in between one blink of an eye and the next, he was here.

“It was winter, but it wasn’t in the palace,” he went on. He picked up someone’s abandoned goblet and inspected it, only to grimace at the smell of the wine and put it back down. “I didn’t even know who he was. He wasn’t king yet. Someone had set part of the forest on fire, you see, and I came to stop them and he already had.”

He sighed. His eyes were deep red, stark and unsettling against the whites. “It was very beautiful.”

It wasn’t clear if he meant the fire or Ushijima, or whatever Ushijima had done to abruptly stop an arsonist, and Kenma was not sure which option was the more unsettling.

Around them, many of the inn’s inhabitants were getting hastily to their feet, now that the initial shock keeping them frozen in their seats had begun to wear off. The knight gave no sign that he even noticed them hurrying out the door. He seemed to know without further appraisal that they weren’t who he was looking for.

The rangers didn’t move, though, and neither did Kuroo or Kenma. They were too close, caught in the knight’s attention, and could not be sure their departure would be as acceptable to him.

“I’m Tendou,” the knight said, odd eyes traveling from Kuroo to Kenma. “It’s very nice to meet you. Do you want to hear more about how I came to know the king? I did block that door from the outside on my way in,” he added more loudly, in that same cheerful tone, so conversationally that it took a moment for Kenma to realize that he wasn’t talking to them anymore.

He was talking to Oikawa and Iwaizumi, who had reached the back door on the opposite wall.

It happened so quickly Kenma would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching him. He still almost did.

Even looking right at him, even without blinking, he barely registered the action as Tendou moved, quick as a blur, quicker than anyone could react, and flung something across the room.

It was faster than anything Kenma had ever seen, but the champion of Seijoh still somehow reacted even faster.

The first knife struck the raised blade of his sword, which he had flung up in front of Oikawa barely in time, with a resounding clang.

The second knife hit Iwaizumi squarely in the right shoulder, the one he had left unguarded in the process. Oikawa made a pained sound, soft and low, as if he had been the one hit. Iwaizumi sagged slightly against him, teeth gritted. Blood began to soak through around the hilt, turning the brown of his cloak black.

Oikawa drew his own sword, which gleamed brighter than silver in the low light.

But the knight had moved at the same time the knives had, bounding over the table and sending the chess board and all the pieces flying, and so he was already standing there waiting as Oikawa unsheathed his sword, left-handed.

He was waiting, and so he was able, taking advantage of Oikawa’s distraction with Iwaizumi, to take hold of his wrist before he could strike and twist it in a sharp, horrible motion.

Oikawa almost managed not to scream as his wrist was broken. His sword dropped to the ground at their feet with a clatter of metal. Tendou pinned Oikawa’s uninjured arm behind his back, dragging him back away from the wall.

“Everyone will kindly stay precisely where they are,” Tendou announced, looking around at the terrified guests who had failed to take the earlier opportunity to leave when the knight was distracted. “I am not yet out of knives.”

He emphasized the point by producing another out of nowhere and pressing it Oikawa’s throat so closely there was no room for him to wiggle free. Tendou walked him back, away from Iwaizumi, who was leaning braced on one arm against the wall. His face was white, and Kenma didn’t think it was from pain.

“I am going to have to ask you to put down your sword so that I don’t hurt him any further,” Tendou said to Iwaizumi in a clear, carrying tone, once they were spaced several feet apart.

“And you’re not going to want to,” he went on without waiting for an answer, sighing and waving his free hand, “because you believe in him and think you won’t need to. And then I’m going to prove you wrong, probably by killing you, and that’s very boring, so I think you should just drop your sword now and save me the effort.”

“You won’t kill him,” Iwaizumi said. His voice was remarkably steady, but there was a tremor in his sword hand. “Ushijima wouldn’t let you.”

Tendou hummed in annoyance. “You aren’t listening! I did not say I would kill him, I said,” he took hold of Oikawa’s already broken arm, higher up, near the elbow. His fingers tightened pointedly, and Oikawa didn’t flinch but Kenma saw Iwaizumi inhale. “I will hurt him.”

“Please,” Iwaizumi forced out, like the word hurt.

“Begging is more interesting,” Tendou observed. “But still not very interesting.”

It was clear Iwaizumi was wavering, eyes fixed on Tendou’s fingers around Oikawa’s arm, but he was still holding his sword.

Tendou sighed. “I do not have time for this,” he said crossly, as if they were deliberately interfering with his schedule. “Perhaps I will have more luck appealing differently.”

He tapped Oikawa’s temple with one long finger, pressing the knife still harder into his skin. Kenma saw Oikawa inhale sharply against the blade. “Your highness, if you would be so kind. Convince your champion to drop his sword or I will kill him here, and he won’t get to come back to Shiratorizawa with us.”

“Let him go,” Oikawa said. To Tendou, not to Iwaizumi. He was bleeding where the sharp edge of the knife had dug too deeply into his throat, and he was pale from pain. “Promise you will let him walk out of here, unharmed, and I will go with you.”

“I’ll kill you myself,” Iwaizumi threatened, and Oikawa laughed, a choked-off sound. “Are you listening to me? Don’t you dare say something as stupid as that.”

Kenma again remembered his father calling Oikawa a child king with a sneer in his voice. He didn’t think he would call him that if he could see him now, bargaining himself for someone he loved.

“Do make him listen to you,” Tendou said plaintively to Oikawa. “I don’t want to kill him.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t found anything better to do than to run around after us like a dog just because your master doesn’t know when he is beaten,” Iwaizumi spat at him.

It was rather a bold thing to say under the present circumstances, but it didn’t appear to make Tendou angry the way Kenma had expected.

He only blinked at Iwaizumi, frowning slightly. “You stole from him,” he said reasonably.

Oikawa laughed again, and it sounded ragged. He was cradling his broken wrist close to his chest. “You can’t steal something you made.”

“Everyone acts as if we are being so unreasonable for moving out our borders,” Tendou sighed. “I am sure I don’t know why. Isn’t this what kingdoms do? What you have all always done? Try and take as much as you can, even if that means turning on each other?”

Kenma thought of the war with Karasuno, so recent in living memory. He thought about Dateko’s feud with Seijoh, or the tentative peace with Nohebi that felt, some days more than others, that it teetered on a knife’s edge.

He couldn’t say that the knight was wrong.

Kenma glanced back at Kuroo to see what he was thinking, and was met with precisely the determined expression he was hoping not to see.

“We have to help them,” Kuroo murmured in Kenma’s ear.

“No we don’t,” Kenma said at once, unblinking. He did his best not to move his mouth as he spoke. “They wouldn’t have helped us.”

“Even you can’t know that,” Kuroo said. He didn’t sound the least bit surprised by Kenma’s answer. If Kenma had been ready for this argument, so had Kuroo. “I know you know I’m right. And I know you have a plan.”

Kenma did not have a plan. He had the half-formed beginnings of something he would not ever grant the legitimacy of being named a plan, and that was not the same at all.

“It risks you,” Kenma said. “You for them is not a trade I’ll make.”

Kuroo laughed into his hair. “Do you have so little faith in me as that?”

Kenma didn’t answer right away, because he was frustrated and -- if he was honest -- afraid. He saw no need at all to involve themselves in something that didn’t concern them. Whatever history Seijoh and Shiratorizawa had, it was nothing to do with Nekoma, and Oikawa had threatened them.

He had said himself that he was considering turning them over, and might have, if things hadn’t gone so badly for him all of a sudden. He might still.

Kenma could not quite ignore the voice at the back of his mind that suggested, in unimpressed tones, that that threat had never seemed particularly serious.

And even if it was, that same voice reminded him, they had only come here in the first place because Seijoh was the only chance they had. The only chance any of them had, if things played out the way Kuroo thought. They likely would; he was a good tactician.

If something happened to Oikawa and Iwaizumi, here in this tavern or back in Shiratorizawa...if they were defeated and Seijoh fell, that would decimate the north’s defenses.

Moreover, if something happened to them, then this whole venture had been for nothing and Kuroo and Kenma would not be able to go home. Kuroo, in particular, who loved Nekoma and had sworn to die defending it, would not be able to go back to it.

And then there was something else, besides all that, wasn’t there?

Kenma felt chilled to realize he had been thinking about this the way his father would have. What Nekoma would lose, or Nekoma would gain, from the outcome of a single struggle in a tavern on Fukurodani’s border.

But it was simpler than that. Kuroo wasn’t sitting there, expression certain, asking him to make a decision for Nekoma, or for Seijoh. He was asking him because of something Takeshi would never have considered: whether or not it was the right thing to do, to help people who needed it.

It was that, more than anything, that decided it. Kenma had never wanted to be his father.

He bit back a loud groan of annoyance, since just because he was going to do it did not mean he was happy about it.. “Fine,” he said flatly.

Kuroo was already beaming. “Tell me what to do.”

“You’re going to be a target,” Kenma said. “Stop smiling.”

Kenma told him, and Kuroo looked thoughtful for several seconds and then said, “You’re right, this is not a good plan.”

“I did say,” Kenma said.

“That’s not even a plan, is it?”

“I did say,” Kenma said again, crossly. He leaned over to the ranger next to him. “Excuse me,” he said with a bland smile, “but are any of you carrying seasonings?”

“How long do you think he needs?” Kenma asked Kuroo no more than a minute later, once the ranger had gone through his pack and, mystified, handed Kenma over a small tin box.

Kuroo glanced back at Iwaizumi, assessing.

Tendou was currently elaborating on the day he had met Ushijima in the forest. Both Iwaizumi and Oikawa looked somewhat as if they wished he would resume breaking limbs rather than continue on the present conversational path.

Kenma could see even from where they were sitting that Iwaizumi was bleeding badly now, dark blood soaked through the fabric of his cloak and dripping slow and sluggish to the stones at his feet. It was clear the knife in his shoulder had hit something vital, and he was losing a considerable amount of blood.

“I think,” Kuroo said at last, “That if you can get the faerie knight to let go of his king for any time at all, he’ll make that be enough.”

Kenma knew without question that Kuroo would do precisely what Kenma said, exactly as Kenma had imagined it. He had no assurance at all that Iwaizumi would, but the plan depended on it. All their lives depended on it, which was deeply regrettable yet unavoidable.

“We only have the one chance,” Kenma told Kuroo quietly. “He doesn’t know us, and that is our only advantage. You saw how he was -- he predicted every single move they made.”

“I don’t think he was predicting,” Kuroo said. He looked worried but, in Kenma’s consideration, not nearly worried enough. “I think he was guessing. If I am right, all we need to do is make him guess wrong.”

“And if you aren’t right, we will all likely die here,” Kenma reminded him.

“Thank you Kenma, I had quite forgotten.” Kuroo pressed a kiss to the top of Kenma’s head and murmured, “Here goes nothing.”

Then he stood up, with a loud scrape of the bench on the stone floor, and threw back his cape to draw his sword. “Let them go,” he said, in a clear, carrying voice. “In the name of Nekoma.”

Tendou laughed. It was an awful sound, like crystal chimes in the wind but eerie, wrong. He looked absolutely delighted, eyes dancing from Kuroo to the distinctive claw-hilted sword he wielded and back. “A catling! Right under my nose! Oh, how exciting!”

Kenma had banked on the fact that Tendou would -- judging by all previous behavior -- be pleased rather than threatened by a newcomer, and would not feel the need to throw another knife without warning. He was extremely relieved that he had been right.

Kuroo moved away around the table, distancing himself from Kenma and drawing the knight’s eyes away to follow him. “I said, let them go,” he said, in the tone he customarily only used to make soldiers stop lounging around and fall into line during morning training.

“You don’t command me,” Tendou said pleasantly, cocking his head to one side. “Are you quite sure you know what you’re doing, threatening a king’s messenger in the name of Nekoma?”

“I believe we are at war already, aren’t we?” Kuroo asked. His boots crunched on broken glass strewn across the floor. “I could have sworn we received a letter about it only recently. I suppose it will be terribly embarrassing for me if that was all a misunderstanding, and we are in fact friends.”

He nudged aside a chair that had tipped over in its former occupant’s haste to abandon it, beginning to pick his way down around the other side of the room. “But it makes little difference. If you are a friend I entreat you, and if an enemy I demand of you, unhand these men and leave the free kingdom of Fukurodani immediately.”

Kenma only had one chance at this. He was not yet close enough to be sure of his aim, and in order for him to get closer, Tendou’s attention had to be on Kuroo only. The slightest awareness of Kenma’s presence or involvement would ruin everything.

Kuroo had always been very good at drawing attention, and Kenma had always been very good at avoiding it. Tendou’s gaze didn’t stray back in his direction even once.

Kenma slipped off the bench, ducking only a few feet over to the adjacent table and sliding into a vacant spot at the end, near a startled looking merchant. Kenma communicated through a very emphatic stare that he should remain silent.

Tendou was now in spitting distance. Kenma’s fingers were closed around the tin box so hard that the sharp edges were digging into his skin.

Iwaizumi had noticed. He looked from Kenma to Kuroo, circling the room, and then back. Kenma held his gaze, willing him to understand. It would all be for nothing if he didn’t.

Tendou was mirroring Kuroo’s movements, shifting his feet with Oikawa still trapped in front of him, so that he could keep Kuroo in his line of sight. Kenma popped the lid off the box and tipped the box over into his palm.

Tendou moved another inch. That was it: with that step, Kenma calculated that he was no longer even in the knight’s peripheries. No time to waste. He leapt to his feet, swung his arm, and opened his hand to hurl the contents at the faerie.

Tendou screamed as the salt hit him, and dropped Oikawa like a sack of potatoes as he stumbled backwards, clawing at his hair and neck to try and get it off.

Iwaizumi, who had not known the plan but even bleeding to death seemed to recognize when to wait for a cue, lunged forward and grabbed Oikawa around the waist, hauling him backwards.

“Two kitties,” Tendou said, laughing horribly as he turned back to fix his gaze full on Kenma. There were red lines down his face where he had scratched his own skin too deeply in an attempt to get the salt off. “You blended right in. I think I like you very much. I will still have to kill you, of course.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, possibly an elaboration on how he was going to kill Kenma.

Instead, he made a soft oof-ing sound and looked down in surprise as an arrow sprouted from his shoulder. He frowned, then, as if it must be a mistake. Kenma looked back in time to see someone in a dark cloak lower their bow and disappear out the front door.

Everyone still present seemed to take that as their cue, and benches scraped back and footsteps hurried on stone as people got to their feet and fled, with and without their belongings, in their haste to be away from the knight and the tavern and the whole situation.

Kenma stared at the arrow. The fletching was distinctive, deep brown with flecks of white.

Kuroo, who had jumped up and hopped back over several tables to get back to Kenma, landed lightly next to him now, pulling him hastily out of range of a sword.

But Tendou, it was immediately clear, was not in any position to hurt any of them further. He had sat down, looking startled, on top of the table nearest him, giggling faintly, crimson eyes wide. He made no move to pull the arrow out.

“Are you all right?” Kuroo asked, sheathing his sword again. “Your plan worked perfectly.”

“It wasn’t a plan,” Kenma reminded him, “But I suppose it did.”

The plan, such that it was, had hinged primarily on keeping Tendou distracted while ensuring that he did not actually engage with either of them at all costs; seeing how easily he had disarmed both Oikawa and Iwaizumi, within seconds, had made Kenma very sure that they would fare little better.

Oikawa was helping Iwaizumi out of the tavern behind them, straggling behind the last of the rangers. The innkeep himself seemed to have departed long ago, perhaps having decided giving up the tavern was a small price to pay for avoiding any further dramatics involving faeries, and the disheveled room was left empty save for them and Tendou, who was sitting bleeding on the table, making faint gasping noises.

“I’m getting our things from upstairs,” Kuroo said, eyeing him uneasily. “With the commotion this caused, I’m very sure royal soldiers will be on their way already.”

He vanished upstairs, and Kenma was left alone with the knight. Oddly, he didn’t feel afraid of him anymore. Perhaps it was because he looked much less terrifying, when he was not in motion. Perhaps it was because, if Kenma had guessed the origin of the arrow correctly, it was tipped in iron, not stone, and even the non-fatally aimed shot would prove deadly soon.

“Why did you give him your name?” Kenma asked into the silence, because the unanswered question was consuming all his thoughts, now that nothing dire was actively happening, and he didn’t know when he would ever have the opportunity again to ask. “King Ushijima?”

The knight looked up at him, fingers still splayed around the arrow shaft buried in his shoulder, and for the oddest moment he looked very young and very human, wide-eyed in surprise at the question.

Then he smiled. “Because,” he said, and coughed painfully. “I thought I would like the way it sounded in his mouth.”

Kenma had noticed the ring on his necklace before from a distance, heavy and ornate. He had not been close enough then to see the slender, simple gold band on the chain with it.

It was beautiful, he had said dreamily, about the first time he met Ushijima. The last piece fit into place, and Kenma understood.

“Were you right?” he asked.

The faerie’s smile deepened. “Yes, I was.”

“Kenma,” Kuroo said, reappearing at the bottom of the stairs with both their cloaks and his bag slung across his chest. “We have to go.”

“Let’s get him outside,” Kenma said, and when Kuroo gave him an incredulous look, “You made me help Seijoh. You have to help me now.”

They made it outside, and Kuroo helped Tendou into a seated position on the grass by the stretch where the horses were posted, swishing their tails. He was panting in pain now, and there were beads of sweat at his brow.

Iron was even more deadly to fairies than the salt Kenma had thrown at him. It was like poison, and unless the arrow was removed the pain would grow steadily worse. The iron would burn him from the inside out. It was likely his human blood that was sparing him — Kenma imagined a full fae would be in considerably more agony and would appear considerably less lucid.

Oikawa and Iwaizumi were nearby, paying them no attention at all.

It was hard to say which of them looked the worse for the confrontation. Iwaizumi was trying to look at Oikawa’s wrist, but Oikawa grimaced and said, “Don’t be a fool,” in a rough, ragged voice that would have made Kenma assume he had been crying if he hadn’t been watching him the entire time.

He pulled his wrist back, gingerly, pushing Iwaizumi away with his good hand. “You’re the one bleeding to death. I’ll get the supplies.”

He moved to one of the horses, rummaging in the saddlebags and coming back with a cloth-wrapped bundle of what turned out to be dried herbs. He tugged Iwaizumi down to a kneeling position—he gritted his teeth as he went—and began crushing herbs with nimble fingers, one-handed, tongue between his teeth in concentration.

Iwaizumi shrugged off his cloak and bared his injured shoulder so that Oikawa could apply the sweet-smelling poultice, while Kuroo and Kenma watched. Visibly, Iwaizumi’s expression of pain relaxed as Oikawa worked.

“Magic,” Kuroo murmured to Kenma, and Oikawa, who appeared to hear everything, said, “Oh by all the gods, honestly, do you not have plant medicine in the north? You really will believe anything.”

“Stop being rude. Don’t listen to him,” Iwaizumi advised Kuroo and Kenma as he helped secure the bandage Oikawa had set over the poultice and shrugged his sleeve back up over his injured shoulder. “He thought the Panther of Nekoma was a real panther until he was seven.”

“Not yet,” he added, catching Oikawa’s good arm as he tried to get back to his feet. “Your turn. Kuroo, Kenma,” he said, raising his head. “Can one of you find me a piece of wood or something else sturdy?”

Kuroo went off to break a slat off the stable wall, and brought it back so Iwaizumi could secure it tightly to Oikawa’s injured arm as a splint with makeshift bandages ripped from his cloak. He created a sling out of more torn pieces of fabric, and then sat back on his heels. “Better?” he asked quietly.

Oikawa looked less pale. “Much,” he said, and looked down at the sling. “Unfortunate timing, of course, it will put me off balance. But it could have been far worse.”

He flexed the fingers of his right hand, getting the circulation back into them after several minutes of being pinned behind his back. “It is fortuitous that Tendou is inclined to expect a left-handed opponent.”

Kuroo laughed aloud as realization struck. “I must admit, I am impressed,” he said. “It would never have occurred to me to think so fast.”

Oikawa didn’t answer, as they both stood up and Iwaizumi helped him unbuckle his sword belt and refasten it in the correct way -- Kenma hadn’t seen him adjust it to rest his sheathed sword against his dominant side, and wondered when on earth he had had the time, let alone the foresight to think so many steps ahead -- but Kenma thought he still looked pleased by the compliment.

“And what now?” Iwaizumi asked, quietly. It was very apparent he was not asking Kuroo and Kenma.

Oikawa sniffed briskly. “What do you mean, what now? Now, we continue on. We’ve lost a bit of time, but Kyoutani can’t be more than a few days ahead of us.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Iwaizumi said. He brushed the hair out of Oikawa’s eyes, tracing his fingertips down his cheek. “They were right. We can’t do this by ourselves anymore.”

“Of course we can,” Oikawa insisted, looking angry. He pulled away. “We have all this time, haven’t we?”

Of all things, Iwaizumi started to laugh. It was a ragged sound. “And how are we doing?”

Oikawa looked away, jaw set.

“Listen to me.” Iwaizumi leaned up, touching his forehead to Oikawa’s. “Listen. You don’t have to save everyone by yourself.”

“Of course I do,” Oikawa said, voice cracking horribly. “They trusted me to.”

It was increasingly apparent that this was not a conversation anyone else needed to witness, but Kenma could not think of a surreptitious way to move further away from it.

Tendou was surprisingly quiet, and when Kenma glanced down he saw that the faerie’s eyes were fixed on the two men from Seijoh, expression avid and lips parted slightly.

“And you have only ever rewarded that trust, at every turn,” Iwaizumi said to Oikawa. His speaking voice was so rough, Kenma would not have thought it could sound so soft. “Mine and theirs. But we won’t survive what is to come alone, and I know you know it too. Not because you can’t do it, but because no one could. No one on earth.”

“I can,” Oikawa said stubbornly. His eyes were suspiciously red around the edges. “I can. All I need is time to think, I will come up with something, you’ll see.”

“You’ve been running from him all your life,” Iwaizumi murmured. Not like he thought the rest of them couldn’t hear him, but like he couldn’t care less. “Don’t you think it’s time to stop?”

Oikawa exhaled in a shuddering breath and tipped his head forward, pressing it against Iwaizumi’s. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice so low Kenma almost couldn’t hear it.

“You never have to apologize to me,” Iwaizumi said. His fingers curled into the hair at the nape of Oikawa’s neck. “Unless you ever try to bargain your life for mine again, which we will be discussing at length at a later time.”

Oikawa gave a ragged laugh.

Their conversation turned still quieter, more intimate, and Kenma could no longer hear what was said. He glanced around them, making sure that no one else had lingered near the inn to overhear. He stopped when he saw a shadow detach itself from the edge of the forest, and approach.

“I thought that might have been you,” Kenma said in greeting, as the cloaked figure drew nearer. “It seemed almost too unlikely to be believed, but then, I don’t know of any other archers who use owl feathers in their arrows.”

“Bokuto wanted to come himself,” Akaashi said, pushing back his hood. “I expressed my doubt that he would be able to carry off the necessary subtlety.”

He looked down at Tendou, who gave him an appraising look with narrowed red eyes but did not otherwise seem overly upset by his attacker’s presence. “It appears I was just in time.”

Kuroo returned from checking on the horses, looking no more surprised to see Akaashi than Kenma had been. He inclined his head toward the forest, and the two of him followed some distance away.

“You knew we were leaving Nekoma,” Kuroo said, once they were out of earshot. At Akaashi’s nod, “When? How?”

“I imagine the same time your men did. The moment I heard Kenma was missing, and you were still in the palace, alive and uninjured,” Akaashi said, with a wry smile. “I knew there was no chance in this life or the next that you would let that happen.”

Kuroo looked both flattered and embarrassed by that.

“Thank you for your help,” Kenma said, to stop anyone else from saying anything mortifying. “Then and now. But you should not be here.”

“I know that better than you do. I had little choice, this time. I am here under orders.” Akaashi held out a letter. “I come bearing an urgent message, from the king of Fukurodani. He wanted to formally extend his protection to the both of you.”

“The king,” Kuroo repeated, sounding confused, and then his face creased with the realization. “Then the king is dead.”

“Long live the king,” Akaashi said, quietly.

“How is he?” Kenma asked.

“He has been better,” Akaashi said. “But he will be alright.”

“He shouldn’t have offered us protection,” Kenma said, frowning. He accepted the letter and opened it, scanning the messily scrawled cursive above Bokuto’s signature and seal. “He certainly should not have put it in writing.”

“Points which I brought up as well,” Akaashi said. “And was soundly ignored.”

Kenma studied the letter. “Nor should he have written down the offer to make Kuroo his royal consort, while we are keeping track.”

Kuroo looked scandalized. “Kenma! That isn’t funny.”

“Just as well I’m not making it up, it says so right here,” Kenma said, handing the letter over so he could see. “I hope you don’t expect me to fight him for your honor. It’s a very good offer that you should take him up on.”

Kuroo gave him a deeply put-upon look and then took a deep breath and said, “I should like to write him back. Do you have ink?”

Akaashi did, and once Kuroo had set to scrawling a reply on the back of the original letter, expression soft, Kenma asked Akaashi, “Has anyone suggested that you may have helped us escape?”

Akaashi shook his head. He looked almost amused by the suggestion. As if it had not for a moment crossed his mind.

“I was very careful to ensure that no one might think Fukurodani had anything to do with it,” he said. “There are rumors that you were helped by your fellows, and further rumors that Nohebi was involved, but those likely couldn’t have been helped.”

“We haven’t seen anyone after us so far,” Kuroo said, stoppering the ink and straightening up again. He handed over the letter.

“No, well, you wouldn’t. Everyone thinks you’ve gone in the opposite direction and been captured by Johzenji pirates off the coast,” Akaashi said disinterestedly. “I sent a letter ahead to Captain Terushima. He’s promised to keep up that pretense wherever they make port.”

It took a moment for Akaashi to realize that they were both staring at him. “And how exactly,” Kuroo said with some trepidation, “Did you obtain a promise from the most feared pirate in the sea?”

“I was acquainted with him when he was still a nobleman,” Akaashi said with a slight shrug. “He was willing to do me a favor.”

“I can’t believe we have known you for three years and you waited until now to reveal this information, when we have no time at all to discuss it,” Kuroo said despairingly.

Akaashi gave a small smile. As he turned to look over one shoulder at the king and champion of Seijoh, Kenma noticed for the first time the dimple in his right ear where it had once been pierced.

“Do you think you could get this to the captain, to make a more compelling show of it?” Kuroo asked, holding up Kenma’s crown. When Akaashi nodded and went to take it, Kuroo held it back. “You know what will happen if you are caught with this?”

“Then I suppose I won’t be caught with it,” Akaashi said sardonically, and waggled his fingers impatiently until Kuroo handed over the crown. It immediately vanished beneath his cloak the same as the letter had, and Kenma wondered, not for the first time, if Akaashi’s ancestors had had magic in their bloodline.

Kuroo glanced back at the others, brow furrowed. “We should get that arrow out of his shoulder soon,” he said in an undertone, gaze lingering on Tendou. “From the looks of it, it will kill him, otherwise.”

“Not that I don’t wish to have my arrow back,” Akaashi said, “But I would consider that once it is removed, you lose any advantage you may have. I would advise waiting to remove it until you see that it is absolutely necessary.”

Kenma watched Kuroo’s face. He could tell two things: first, that Kuroo knew Akaashi was right, and secondly, that he hated it.

“I at least want to break off the shaft so he can travel,” Kuroo said at last. “I will ask if Iwaizumi has something to help with the pain.”

That settled, they joined the other two again, who seemed to be of a like mind and were in the process of snapping the arrow shaft as close as possible to the wound. They had also, it transpired, come to a decision.

“We’re bringing him with us to Shiratorizawa,” Oikawa announced as they approached, tossing aside the remainder of the arrow and brushing his good hand off on his trousers. “He is the only leverage we have, and he’s not likely to stab us in our sleep when he’s half dead.”

“I wouldn’t do that anyway,” Tendou said confidentially, and then giggled. “Shirabu, however, will.”

He was holding his hands out very obediently so that Iwaizumi could bind them with a length of rope, and aside from being in what looked like considerable pain, did not appear overly upset about his change of circumstances.

“Shiratorizawa?” Kenma repeated, looking at Oikawa.

Oikawa sighed and turned his eyes heavenward. “I hope you’re not going to belabor the point when we are all aware of the situation,” he said. “I have been informed that that is extremely dull.”

“We have an errand to complete before we can return home, as you know,” Iwaizumi said. “If you are willing to accompany us, you have our word of honor that once we have retrieved our knight, we will accompany you in riding for Shiratorizawa and stand with you to bargain for Ushijima’s surrender.”

“One messenger isn’t enough to leverage a kingdom’s surrender,” Akaashi spoke up. He was right, objectively, but Kenma had not had time to tell him about the rings around Tendou’s neck, or the difference in the way he spoke Ushijima’s name.

“Who are you?” Iwaizumi asked. Akaashi did not answer.

“Oh, I don’t believe our friend is only a messenger,” Oikawa said. He prodded Tendou with the hilt of his sword. “Are you?”

Tendou’s eyes narrowed to slits, and he hummed but did not answer in favor of looking down at his hands.

“I thought not,” Oikawa said sweetly.

“Are you going to hurt us, if we take you along?” Kenma asked Tendou. Faeries couldn’t lie. He didn’t know about half-faeries.

Tendou looked up at him. “No,” he said, subdued. “You said you were going to take me home. I would like to go home.”

“He’s not full-blooded fae,” Iwaizumi said. “We will have to be cautious. His promise doesn’t mean anything.”

“A promise can still mean something even if you’re not bound to it,” Kuroo said. He walked past to untie their horses from their hooks. “Or do they not believe that in Seijoh?”

Iwaizumi gave him a look behind his turned back that was eerily reminiscent of Yaku.

“You told us you spoke for Nekoma,” Oikawa said quietly to Kenma. “I hope you are prepared to back that up. You ran away from home with one of your father’s knights. Are you sure he will listen and agree to anything you have to say, if you come back with this plan?”

“Yes,” Kenma said without hesitation. He wasn’t sure of many things, but he was sure of this. “My father has always been more practical than he is proud. He won’t like it, but he will agree to it if it keeps Nekoma safe.”

Oikawa gave him an assessing look, but whatever he saw on Kenma’s face seemed to satisfy him. He nodded once.

“And you?” Kenma asked, recalling his attention before he could move away. “If we help you find your knight, you promise you will come with us to Shiratorizawa?”

“I promise,” Oikawa said. “By everything that I have, I will help you.”

“Before we reach that point,” Iwaizumi interrupted, “There is the issue of transport.”

Kenma didn’t know what he meant. They had five horses for five people, and he even went so far as to count them again to make sure.

As if to demonstrate the heart of what Iwaizumi was saying, Kuroo returned leading his and Kenma’s horses behind him at that moment. The destrier sniffed the air and then shied away violently, eyes fixed on where Tendou was standing, teeth showing and ears pressed flat to her head.

Kuroo was so startled he barely kept his grip on the reins; his horse did not spook.

“Horses don’t like me very much,” Tendou said by way of explanation. He gave the horse a small wave. “They know I am different, and they don’t like it.”

“Well, you can’t ride your own horse, we’re not fools,” Iwaizumi said, looking over one shoulder at the chestnut horse tethered to a tree some distance away. It had distinctly odd eyes, noticeable even at a distance, and was standing very still and watching them.

“Very well, since it seems I must do everything myself,” Oikawa said, with a dramatic sigh. He moved back to the three horses left stabled -- the bay at the end Kenma now recognized as Akaashi’s -- and untied his own horse, leading her back over to the group. She was almost pure white, spotted grey around the flanks and brow.

“Oh, you’re one of ours, aren’t you,” Tendou said, leaning forward to pat the horse. “I can see it in your eyes.” She didn’t flinch away, only huffed air out of her nose at him and regarded him with the most unimpressed look Kenma had ever seen in a horse. “How did a human king come into possession of a horse who has seen the wild hunt?”

“A story for another time,” Oikawa said, returning. He had gone to retrieve Tendou’s horse as well and was tying the reins of the faerie’s horse to the saddle of his own. He made a pleased sound as he tightened the last knot. “There. You won’t be able to run, and if you try, you can be sure we will catch you.”

“I will take word back to Fukurodani that Seijoh has agreed to an alliance with Nekoma, and with all the north by proxy,” Akaashi said quietly to Kenma. “I will also ensure that it is kept quiet how this came about until we know you are well outside the reaches of anyone who might try to stop you.”

“So you will not be telling the king?” Kuroo asked, sounding amused.

“I will not,” Akaashi agreed.

“Who is that?” Kenma heard Oikawa ask in the background. Iwaizumi shushed him.

“You look worried,” Kuroo murmured to Kenma as they watched Akaashi return to his horse, sweeping his hood back up over his head as he mounted. Kuroo nudged him. “Do you not think it will work?”

“Oh, no,” Kenma said, blinking. “I am in fact very sure it will work.”

“Then something else is bothering you.”

“It isn’t important.”

“Kenma.”

Kenma sighed. “It’s very foolish,” he said, annoyed. He looked down at his feet, stomach turning over. “I’m worried if we go back, I’ll have to go through with the marriage. I’m afraid they will make me.”

Kuroo’s expression softened. “That isn’t foolish,” he said. “But I won’t let you go that easily. They will find it a hard-won fight, if they try.”

“You know that they couldn’t,” Oikawa said, appearing alarmingly next to them again, “if you were already married.”

“Stop eavesdropping,” Iwaizumi admonished, gripping him by the back of his hood to pull him back a step.

“My father is the highest authority in Nekoma,” Kenma said to Oikawa. He shook his head slightly. “Even if we were to have someone marry us, he would never recognize it as legitimate when we returned.”

“Unless the ceremony was performed in a foreign land, by a foreign sovereign,” Oikawa said idly, inspecting the fingernails on his uninjured hand. “Then, of course, he would have to.”

Kenma was startled to realize that he was right. Each kingdom had their own regulations regarding trade and taxes and contracts, and they were bound to acknowledge the others’ as legitimate regardless of which borders they stood in. Seijoh’s laws did not apply to citizens of Nekoma, of course, but contracts made in any sovereign kingdom would be upheld as valid in all the rest.

Kenma looked back at Kuroo to see what he was thinking, and was unprepared for how hopeful he looked. “Oh. You want to, don’t you?” Kenma asked.

“You needn’t sound so surprised,” Kuroo said, lips quirking. “I thought after everything, my intentions would be fairly obvious.”

“Well, yes, but now?”

“As good a time as any,” Kuroo said. “If you’ll have me.”

“I thought after everything, that would be fairly obvious,” Kenma said back to him, archly.

“Very well then, no time to waste, stand here,” Oikawa said, bossily. He whistled through his teeth. “You, the archer! One moment, if you please.”

He waited until Akaashi rode over, expression curious, and clasped his hands together. “Excellent. We have representatives of four kingdoms in attendance, that makes it legitimate. Take each other’s hands.”

Kenma thought ‘in attendance’ was a generous way of stating it, when the representative from Shiratorizawa in attendance was currently very injured with his hands bound, but he let it pass. Kuroo held out his hand, and Kenma took it, curling his fingers around Kuroo’s palm.

“Give me a piece of your cloak,” Oikawa said to Iwaizumi, who complained, “There is little enough left of it as it is, after your bandages,” but still conceded to tear off a new strip and hand it over without any argument.

Oikawa looped the ribbon of cloth around their clasped hands, tying it loosely. “You are bound together from this day forth,” he said. “You are free from all who might try to break you apart. Let no man unbind what has been bound or alter that freedom.”

There was a pause, wherein both Kuroo and Kenma only looked at him. Oikawa looked expectant. “There we go, you are married. You may kiss.”

“That’s it?” Kuroo asked, startled.

“I was rather in a hurry when I came up with it,” Oikawa said, defensively. “If you want to recite poetry to him you can do so on your own time. Now for goodness’ sake, kiss, or it isn’t binding.”

Kuroo leaned down to kiss him, soft and chaste, and Kenma could feel him smiling against his lips.

“There we go, I think that’s all the loose ends,” Oikawa said. He clapped his hands. “Are we ready to depart?”

“I am,” Tendou said.

“I do not care,” Oikawa told him kindly.

Kuroo looked thoughtful, watching the others mounting their horses and getting ready to make way. “When we get to Shiratorizawa,” he murmured to Kenma, “Are we overthrowing a king, or are we uniting an empire?”

“I suppose we will have to see when we get there,” Kenma said.

Kuroo made a sound that might have been a laugh. “I suppose we will.”

He held his hand out to Kenma, a gesture more familiar than almost anything. Since Kenma could remember. Long before.

Kuroo asking him to follow into the dark, unknown mouth of the hedge maze. Urging him to come along while the palace was under attack. Summoning him to practice, or to dinner, or from the library, a thousand times. An unthinking question he had always known Kenma would answer.

He may have always known, just as he knew now, but his expression was just as open as it ever was, and he was asking all the same.

I’ll be with you every step of the way, Kuroo had told him in the dying light out in the gardens, wooden sword in hand, so many years ago. And he had never once failed in that promise.

Kenma had no idea what lay ahead of them, but at least he knew he would not have to face it alone.

He stepped forward, and took Kuroo’s hand.