Chapter Text
Students were rolling out of their classes after a whole day of lectures.
“Bro, I’m so confused. What the hell was that?” Bokuto complained to Kuroo who was still shoving books into his back before flinging it over his shoulders.
“I don’t know but I’m starving can we grab something to eat.”
“Yeah but before that…” Bokuto trailed off but Kuroo didn’t need for him to finish his sentence to know.
The both of the would always go to the common area and hang out there for a little so Bokuto could have his dose of eye candy. He didn’t know when it started but they were lounging around and just passing time before their next lecture when Bokuto went silent, and he never shuts up, so he followed Bo’s line of sight and he was staring at a blonde kid with hair that barely reached his shoulders.
“Hmm, who are you looking at?” Kuroo smirked at Bokuto and he pushed the others’ face that was too close and that was when Bokuto would start hanging out there in hope of seeing his mystery man.
Their eyes met a few times and they’ve smiled at each other but that rarely happened because his eyes were always downcast, as if to avoid any contact even even when their eyes met, he would quickly avert his eyes so Bokuto figured he was just shy.
It was nicer when he had a certain orange head with him because that’s when he looked up and had a cute smile on his face.
When they got to their usual spot, Kuroo froze and then Bokuto. The blonde was sitting at their usual spot at the common area. They were both there for a good few seconds before Kuroo finally said something. “Why don’t you walk up to him and say something.”
Bokuto’s eyes went wide at the suggesting like it never crossed his mind that he would ever talk to the blonde. Bokuto’s protests weren’t heard because Kuroo was now pushing him towards their spot with a thumbs up and an encouraging smile and promised he’d come over after five minutes.
“H- hey.”
At the sudden greeting, the blonde looked up and that was the first time they’ve ever properly faced each other and his eyes were a beautiful shade of gold and they stared up at Bokuto with such intensity, it made him flinch but he was sure its was his nerves making him feel that way.
Realising Bokuto was talking to him, the blonde nodded accompanied with a soft ‘hey’ and returned his attention to his phone.
“Do you mind if I sit here?”
The boy nodded, attention still on his phone. “It’s originally your spot anyways.”
Bokuto managed to hold back a shocked face but apparently it was obvious. “Oh yeah.” was all he managed to say in his shocked state.
His crush knew him, knew about him or at least his existence anyways but it was more that what he was expecting.
“What’s your name, by the way? Uh- I’m Bokuto Koutarou.”
The other looked at to stare at Bokuto as if to assess the man’s intentions and whatever that was going through his head. “Kozume Kenma.” he finally said.
Kenma. That was his name.
He replayed the name in his head over and over again making sure to remember it then next time, not like he could forget anyways.
“What major are you doing?”
“Computer graphic design.” he briefly said.
“Seriously, that’s so cool! So like you can design cool stuff and draw and all those cool stuff.” Bokuto said a little too excitedly it made Kenma flinch, the man was a little to loud for his liking and was considering to either shush the guy or walk away but either one was rude so he didn’t do anything.
Kenma just nodded.
Bokuto told him he was majoring in
They talked for a little exchanging information about themselves and how their day went, mostly Bokuto asking the question but Kenma would throw in questions sometimes too and it made Bo heart flutter, especially when he laughed.
Bokuto heard his text tone and excused himself to read whoever it was from
From Kuroo:
Bro, you done? Can I come over now?
Sent 5:42pm
Read 5:42pm
To Kuroo:
Lol I was wondering where the hell you were!! Come over!
Sent 5:42pm
Read 5:42pm
As promised, Kuroo appeared in front both of them shortly after the text, interrupting their conversation.
“Kenma!” they heard someone call his name and they all looked over to the voice. Bokuto recognised him as the redhead who was always around Kenma. They seemed to be close friends and they talked for abit before the redhead excused themselves saying they had classes to attend, leaving both Bokuto and Kuroo on the couches.
The next weekend, the midterm tests were finally over and there was an invitation to a huge house party held by one of Kuroo’s friend or enemy, Daishou, Bokuto really couldn’t tell.
It was indeed a massive party and a massive house. When they said Daishou was rich, he honestly didn’t expect it to be this rich. It was a two-storey modern house with a pool and there was a fucking DJ stand there. He really went all out for this.
Sometime in the night, he had managed to lose Kuroo in the crowd of sweaty and drunk people and walked around the huge house to look for the man and checked the rooms and walked into several people making out and he quickly slammed the door shut.
In the midst of the crowd, he saw the silhouette of a familiar blonde boy. Kenma was here too.
His hair was tied in a half ponytail and some of his hair strands that were too short fell, the way he parted his bangs to the side was cute too he thought.
He saw Kenma with the redhead but sometime after the party passed, the redhead was nowhere in sight and saw Kenma sitting alone on one of the chairs away from the crowd. On his second cup, Bokuto was slightly braver that he would have been and approached the blonde.
“Kenma.” he said, over the music and the blond tore his eyes away from his phone.
“”Bokuto.”
“You’re not enjoying the party?”
“I am, just taking a break.” he replied.
He grabbed a plastic cup, and took a sip from it.
“Oh what’s that?” he asked curiously.
“Umm, some kind of fruit mixer.” Kenma replied. “Want some?”
In his daze, he didn’t really think much about it and accepted it without much thought. It wasn’t that he was being careless. Bokuto would never accept a drink from a stranger but it was only because it was Kenma.
“Wow, this is really strong.”
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to finish it since earlier.”
“Where your other friend, the one that’s always with you.”
“He went off somewhere.”
“Hmmm.”
“What about you?” Bokuto noticed a slight drag in his sentence. “Where’s that tall friend of yours?”
“Uhh, somewhere I guess. I kinda lost him.”
They indulged in casual conversations and Bokuto bombading Kenma with questions and the blonde giving him simple and suffice answers and whenever Bokuto thinks that he’s annoying the blonde or that he’s not interested, Kenma always seems to comes up with a questions about him.
At least it means that Kenma doesn’t hate him being there.
They talked for quite a while when Bokuto felt a buzz in his pocket and he whipped out his phone to check who it was. Kuroo sent a text.
Bokuto unlocked his phone to see Kuroo sending absolutely incomprehensible words. They weren’t even sentence structured but he didn’t even pick up when Bokuto called him so he brushed it off.
“I’m gonna go to the toilet.” Kenma wobbly stood up from the chair and after taking a single step, he almost tripped but Bokuto caught him just in time.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” he pushed away from Bokuto and mumbled an incoherent thank you and searched for the toilet, Bokuto closely behind him worried until he found the toilet.
Bokuto pulled out his phone again to call Kuroo, but the raven still didn’t pick up his phone. After scanning the house again, Kuroo still wasn’t there and he asked a few people if they’d seen Kuroo.
“I think he went to Daishou’s room, it’s upstairs.” Someone said and at times like this he was glad that Kuroo was a party animal socialite.
He knocked on the door and opened it and he immediately froze. No wonder he didn’t pick his phone up. It was green hair against black, it was the hairstyle Bokuto could spot from miles away and saw everyday laying on the bed pinned down by - Daishou?
It was only a split second but the image was burned into the back of his head. Their mouths heavily pressing against each other, neither wanting to give in to the other’s advances. It was a heated exchange.
When they heard the door open, they both turned to look at interruption. When Kuroo’s eyes met Bokuto’s, his eyes widened. “Bo?”
The amount of people making out he had walked onto tonight alone was enough to make him feel numb about it but seeing his best friend kissing another person he was familiar with was not something he was expecting.
The two were always on each other's throat and never once did Bokuto thought he’d walk into such a scene. Bokuto’s face heated up and he could tell that his face was blushing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to walk in on - well, I’ll be going.”
“Wait, Bo!” Kuroo exclaimed but Bokuto didn’t want. He didn’t want to.
“Kuroo, just leave him be.”
“Shut the fuck up, you dick.” he pushed Daishou off him and zipped his pants up, stumbling after Bokuto.
Bokuto walked off and heard Kuroo call him out but he didn’t really want to face him right now.
“I said, wait!” Kuroo grabbed his arms.
“I called.”
“What?” Kuroo asked confused.
“You didn’t pick up your phone.” he explained
“Ohh sorry.” he said apologetically when he finally saw the miss calls he got from Bokuto.
Bokuto eyes laid on the marks left behind by Daishou and he unknowingly stared at it and Kuroo instinctively covered it up.
“It wasn’t what you think it is.” he started.
“It’s fine. I don’t really care what you do behind closed doors. Just at least answer your phone so I don’t have to wait on you all night.”
“I’m sorry. Daishou, he uhhh-”
“Kuroo, stop I really don’t want to know what you two were doing. I better go check on Kenma.”
“Kenma? He’s here?”
“Yeah, his friend disappeared too and he seems pretty drunk so I’ll see how he is.”
Bokuto excused himself and went to look for Kenma. It was pretty easy to spot the blonde, he was curled up in the corner not far from the toilet and there was a few girls surrounding him. Oh shit was he sick?
“Kenma!”
The blonde looked to look at the person calling his name. “Bo.. kuto.” his eyes were heavily lidded and face flushed from the alcohol.
“Are you alright? Do you need to go home?” Bokuto crouched down so he could have a better look at Kenma.
He didn’t look like he was in any pain so it was most probably the effects of alcohol and he didn’t look too sick.
“Cat.”
“What?” he asked confused.
“Bokuto, you don’t look like a cat.” he said, his speech slurred.
“Kenma, hey.” he tried getting the blonde’s attention again. “Look at me, Kenma. Do you want to go home?”
“No!! I’m going home with Shouyo.” he complained.
“Your orange haired friend?” he asked and the blonde nodded.
“Do you wanna look for him?” Bokuto asked again and he nodded once more.
He pulled Kenma by the hand but it was hard enough the blonde to walk. “Kenma, can you call Shouyo? Instead? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to walk around.”
It took a while trying to get Kenma to unlock his phone and call the number but Bokuto managed to make it work. Bokuto rang him and someone picked up after a few rings. “Hello?”
“Umm.. is this Shouyo?” Bokuto asked.
“Who’s this?” the voice on the other line suddenly turned cold.
“This is Bokuto. Kenma is a little drunk right now. Could you - “
“Let me talk to Shouyo.” he tried taking his phone back from Bokuto, cutting their conversation short.
“Anyways, can you meet us by the pool?”
Not too long later, a worried redhead called out to Kenma followed by another stern looking raven haired man.
“Kenma, geez. What are you even doing?” Shouyo chatised. He looked over to the person standing next to Kenma, holding a glass of water. “You must be the one who called.”
“I’m Bokuto Koutarou.”
“I’ve seen you around. You’re always with that taller mean looking guy.”
He must mean Kuroo. Bokuto thought to himself. “Ah yeah. We’re classmates, me and him.”
“I’m Hinata Shouyo and this is Kageyama. We’re all in the same class.”
Kageyama gave a slight nod, acknowledging Bokuto.
“Is Kenma-san okay?” he approached the blonde, still crouching on the floor. “How much did he even drink? Kenma.. Kenma-san, can you hear me?” Kageyama tapping the blonde’s face lightly, receiving an annoyed reaction from him. “What do you want to do, Hinata? Bring him home?”
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” Hinata sighed.
The two were obviously not in a good mood because of it but they were more worried about Kenma to leave him be.
“Umm.. If you don’t mind, I can bring him home?” Bokuto offered.
Both the redhead and the raven looked suspiciously at Bokuto. “Why?”
“The friend I came with sort of went off with someone else so I was going to head home anyways so… I mean, I could walk him home.”
Hinata and Kageyama eyed each other, not completely convinced. Sure they went to the same university but it still didn’t change the fact that they don’t know who or what kind of person Bokuto was.
Hinata walked towards Bokuto, and it made his hair stand up.
“If you try anything, and if I hear anything about you from Kenma. It won’t just end with one of us getting hurt.”
For a tiny man, Hinata had a large presence and Bokuto wouldn’t be lying if he said he wasn’t intimidated by him. He didn’t want to push this guy’s button, not that he was planning on doing anything to Kenma in the first place.
As agreed, Bokuto was to walk to blonde home and Hinata had given him the address, which wasn’t too far from his place either.
He propped Kenma’s arm over his shoulders to help to man walk but their height difference was just too wide, it wasn’t nice on both of them and Bokuto ended up carrying him on his back.
“Kenma, are you awake?” the only answer he got was a little whine and shallow breathing next to his ears.
The walk to Kenma’s apartment complex was easy enough. To get into his apartment was the harder part, he had to go thru Kenma’s pocket to find his keys and also supporting the other man by the arm but he managed it.
“Kenma, which is your room?”
It didn’t matter because once they were in the house, Kenma wobbly made his way around the familiar corridor, supporting himself on the wall. Bokuto following closely behind him because he was dangerously swaying.
He pushed the door to his room open and dropped onto his bed.
“Hey, at least take your shoes off.” Bokuto tipped his shoes off for him and neatly placed them in the corner of the room.
With the feeling of shoes gone, Kenma pulled his legs closer to him curling up on the bed and it was the cutest scene Bokuto thinks he has ever seen and thought of taking a picture. He was about to when Hinata’s face showed up and he pushed his urges down, it wouldn’t be appropriate to take his photo without his permission, he told himself.
He went into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water and another one for Kenma.
Back in the room, Kenma was fast asleep on the bed. His bed still made.
“Kenma.” Bokuto shook him awake. “Drink some water.” It took some effort but Kenma eventually sat up and Bokuto took the chance to pull his blanket from under him and placed it on the blonde.
After chugging down the water, Kenma retreated back under the comforts of his blanket. Cute.
After making sure, everything was in place, and the house was still in one piece. He checked up on Kenma once more, sitting on the edge of the bed.
He ran his hand through his golden locks, his hair silky to the touch and would fall back to cover his sleeping face.
“I bet you're not going to remember any of this tomorrow.” He whispered to himself.
“ - ank you.”
Bokuto leaned in closer. “Hmm, what did you say?”
“Thank you.” Kenma propped himself on his elbow and said it again.
He was taken aback at first but a smile quickly made it’s way to his face.
Kenma pulled Bokuto closer to him and placed a chaste kiss on him forehead and giving him a soft smile that would melt your heart.
“Thank you, Shouyo.” He said before falling back into his sleep leaving Bokuto confused as fuck.
"Huh?"