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Kenma is seventeen when he realizes what love truly means.
Now, Kenma has never been one to care about love and its meanings. He would rather stick to his videogames, to the hours he would dedicate to something that, in a way, could be compared to love: can easily become an obsession, takes a lot of work and hours to make it finally be worth it, and it’s extremely unrealistic. Videogames are easier to Kenma, because if he fails, if he finishes a game or if he gets bored, the heartbreak is real, but less painful. Heartbreak from real love is something he doesn’t wish to experience and, to be quite honest, sounds like something very annoying to deal with.
But when he’s seventeen, during his last year of his high school career in Nekoma, he realizes that Kuroo perhaps was a word he could associate with love now.
He notices by the way he always reaches for a person who is not there anymore – as Kuroo had graduated the previous year. He notices how he sets the ball like how Kuroo would want; how he expects someone to slip their arm around him and make fun of his videogame; how he waits for someone to stay for extra training but it’s never who he would want to be; and even how he longs for phone calls and text messages even though he hates those. Details make everything count in Kenma’s life suddenly, but mostly because it’s Kuroo he’s talking about. Kuroo will always be an exception to all of Kenma’s rules, like he just is an exception to Kenma’s rule to never fall in love.
Because he calls it a rule not to be broken, but then he does it. And does it with his childhood best friend.
Realizing this was quite a painful process for Kenma as well. First, it came the denial; second, the fear; third, the want to flee; and finally, the realization he would never, ever want to do anything about it. As much as he notices he’s in love with Kuroo, he also knows that confessing could and probably would ruin the relationship they have solidified during these past years, since they were children.
Kenma can’t avoid pining, though.
It’s hard not to pin for someone he desperately wants to be closer, to be more around. Kuroo is like the sun calling Kenma into his orbit, and Kenma is hopeless against the gravity called love that makes him rotate around him, hopefully expecting to feel warmer, to grow, to be feel alive. He tries hard to pretend he’s not pining after his best friend, but then, Kenma has never been very obvious about anything ever – will anyone, including Kuroo, notice Kenma’s pining if he tries really hard to hide it?
He can only hope.
I want you
Yeah, I want you
And nothing comes close
To the way that I need you
When Kenma graduates and joins college, Kuroo is ecstatic to be able to see him more frequently – they go to the same university in Tokyo after all. Kenma gets an apartment for himself, mostly because he needs silence and no roommate would be willing to hear Kenma playing videogames at odd hours – besides, why go through the hard work of finding someone suitable to live with him? Unnecessary stress, he decides, and gets a place for himself. Small, close to the university and good enough his parents approve. Kuroo lives in the dorms, telling Kenma this is more like a social experiment than anything – which he doesn’t doubt, but doesn’t agree fully either – and they frequently meet on campus and off campus as well.
It’s a weird feeling, to be seeing Kuroo more often again after they hadn’t been really close for the previous year. But Kenma is thankful for it in a way, because as much as it makes his pining more painfully obvious and harder to deal with, he needs to be around Kuroo all the time. It’s like coming home after a long trip, to smell your favorite coffee, or the recently cut grass from your backyard and hear your neighbor’s dog barking far away – that’s how Kenma feels about Kuroo. About how he brings comfort, the safeness, all the feelings he wants to bury but that also warm his heart in a way he can’t explain very well.
So, as much as Kenma is happy to be around Kuroo, he also angsts about it sometimes, because he doesn’t know how to deal with the closeness of being around the person he loves and not being able to reach them, touch them and feel them under his fingertips. Kenma longs for this, like he had never longed for physical contact before, because Kuroo is his home, and he wants his safety, his sun.
I wish I could feel your skin
And I want you
From somewhere within
But nothing comes easily in life.
As Kenma’s second year of college arrives – along with his new popularity with his gaming youtube channel he had previously created so he had somewhere to share his personal games’ strategies – so does Kuroo’s weird phase. At first, Kenma doesn’t pay much attention to it – and he asks Kuroo if he’s fine, if he needs anything (on his own Kenma way), but Kuroo only replies with aw, Kenma! I knew you cared!, so he dropped it to maintain his reputation. That is, until Kuroo starts being really weird around Kenma and he avoids him altogether. He thinks to himself again that it’s nothing, that Kuroo would never just abandon him like this, but the doubts and the anxiety inside his mind become too much when weeks pass by and Kuroo is still acting the same.
“Kuro,” Kenma says one afternoon that they meet, Kuroo talking about his next exam, which will be soon. He doesn’t want to bring this topic when they’re spending their time together at Kenma’s apartment, but if he doesn’t do it now, he’s afraid he never will. “You have been acting weird.”
Kuroo shoots him a curious look, some emotions Kenma can’t decipher at once clouded in his eyes, but he shuts all of them down at once. He smirks, teasingly. “Aw, you noticed, kitten?”
Kenma frowns. “Kuro,” he warns him and Kuroo laughs quietly.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m just stressed, you know? Chemistry is actually managing to kick my ass.”
Still frowning, Kenma stares at him for a second, his game forgotten on his hands for the time being. Kuroo cuts eye contact to observe his textbook on his lap, pretending to be reading – even though Kenma can see his eyes aren’t moving, fixed on one spot. He doesn’t want to drop it, but he doesn’t want Kuroo to think he’s overstepping.
“I thought chemistry was your best subject,” he finally comments, deciding on a safe subject while he turns back to his game. He misses Kuroo’s relieved expression when he hear Kenma’s reply.
“So did I!” he says, tone light but still a bit tight around the edges. The tension is present, but Kenma is willing to let it go for now. “But man, is college kicking my ass, huh…”
Kenma huffs a laugh. “If you didn’t party as much as you do, maybe you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me.”
With a laugh, Kuroo rolls his eyes and gives Kenma a playful – tight? forced? – grin, which he only saw because he glanced at him for a second before going back to his game. “I’m living my best life out there, kitten. You have your games, I have mine.”
Kenma makes a disgusted face, which makes Kuroo laugh again. He doesn’t really like the fact that Kuroo parties a lot, and this had been something he didn’t even know his friend had in him until he arrived in college. But Kenma can’t say anything, because he has no right on dictate how Kuroo should live his life, and he has no right either to judge him for liking parties if he does so much. I have my games, like he said.
If Kuroo makes fun of Kenma with his games, it’s because Kenma is comfortable with it and sure enough to know that Kuroo is teasing him and not actually making fun of him. Besides, Kuroo has always told Kenma he thinks his obsession with videogames is cute – a word that won’t ever leave his mind, ever – and that he would never say any of those things seriously. Kuroo respects him, and Kenma respects Kuroo as well.
He doesn’t touch the topic again, letting things go for now. Kenma is going to respect his wish to not say anything, and he hopes for a yet there. Perhaps, at some point, Kuroo will feel comfortable enough to open up and be honest with him. They’re still best friends, and Kenma hopes Kuroo isn’t feeling weirded out by Kenma’s feelings – if he has figured this out, that is. He still wants to be there for him, even if it’s not exactly how he would hope to.
It feels like there’s oceans
Between you and me once again
We hide our emotions
Under the surface and trying to pretend
But the weeks pass by, and things don’t go back to normal; in fact, it seems like things manage to get worse, because Kuroo slowly stops coming to Kenma’s place and finds all types of excuse not to meet him on campus. At first, Kenma accepts his excuses of midterms happening, but then the exams are over and Kuroo’s phase isn’t. Kenma keeps himself busy with the idea of growing his channel on social media while he doesn’t have more college things to bother him, so he buries all the conflicted emotions he feels for Kuroo. It’s mostly successful, but it’s hard to ignore the space that Kuroo has left in Kenma’s heart with his weird and now constant absence.
He doesn’t do much, and Kenma feels like an ocean has been put between himself and Kuroo. He hears about Kuroo’s wild stories in parties from other people gossiping during classes and hallways, and Kenma tries really hard not to be disappointed. Kuroo decided he wasn’t worth it, preferring to be in parties instead of being with his best friend. This hurts Kenma more than he wished for, and he cannot help but to shut himself down. He throws himself into videogaming and recording for his channel, managing to make at least 10 good videos in an entire week.
He skips a few classes, as well as meals, and decides to become a living zombie. If he’s tired, if he’s hungry, he won’t be able to focus on the feelings he has for Kuroo. He won’t be able to think of the longing, the wish to touch Kuroo’s hair, the need to hide his face on his neck and to hug him tight just to feel his heartbeat against his own. They all haunt him, during the day, during the night, and he feels more stressed than ever because of this.
As much as he loves Kuroo, he doesn’t like the idea of his life being this hard because of a love. It reminds him why he had promised never to fall in love, because this day of painful heartbreak would arrive, and he would suffer with it. Now, as it’s too late to run away, he wants to regret everything, but he can’t. Because as much as it hurts; as much as it feels like he’s going to combust anytime he sees Kuroo; as much as he is pining for an impossible love; as much as his heart clenches all the time with want and need to have Kuroo closer, he cannot bring himself to hate Kuroo or regret loving him. He can’t. Loving him might have brought heartbreak, but it also brought growth, happiness and a feeling of finding home that Kenma has never felt before.
He can’t stop himself from loving Kuroo desperately. Even when Kuroo is breaking his heart.
I want you
And I always will
I wish I was worth
But I know what you deserve
Kenma has noticed for a while who are the type of people that Kuroo would hook up with – the hair, the eyes, the body language. Perhaps it might be considered creeping to observe all of this, but he can’t help, sometimes wishing he could be like any of them. He doesn’t like the idea, and he doesn’t even try to imitate other people’s behavior, but he analyzes it anyway. It makes him wonder what does Kuroo see in these people, anyway? and it’s a question he doesn’t ever find an answer to. It just makes him have more and more questions, until he’s stuck with overthinking and a frustrating anxiety that makes him play more games and sleep even less.
But the point is… It doesn’t matter for Kenma, because Kuroo will always be someone worth of more than just him. He’s not very sociable, being more of the shy type; he’s introverted, and he doesn’t like social gatherings and such as much, preferring to be at his own place playing videogames; he isn’t particularly good looking, his looks aren’t special or different, so he doesn’t consider himself attractive. But Kuroo deserves the whole package, someone who can keep up with him, someone smart and that can understand him wholly; but at the same time, someone who is good looking, to match his features, someone who is sociable, to go on places with him.
And Kenma doesn’t fit in any of those points, except maybe the part of understanding Kuroo. But it really doesn’t matter, because Kuroo deserves better and Kenma is not even one third of what he truly deserves.
With Kuroo being weird and away, Kenma hears girls giggling and talking about meeting him on dates. He hates it, and even more when sometimes he catches Kuroo flirting with other boys on hallways – that is the moment when he’s the one running and hiding, afraid of Kuroo catching him and how he would have to witness him flirting with someone from the same sex as him. It makes more real that he could have a chance, and it terrifies him because Kuroo deserves better.
It’s only a matter of time until things fall apart, though.
Kenma knows he hasn’t been sleeping much, and he knows it’s a matter of time before he collapses from exhaustion. Also, the food he has been eating is not enough, and he call feel his bones sticking to his thin frame like when he was a child and hasn’t met volleyball yet. He can’t bring himself to care though, because when Kenma is stressed, he forgets he’s still a human being and he just throws himself into whatever makes him forget his problems.
His channel grows considerably during this period.
One day, though, he can’t bring himself to go to college. He wakes up and his head is screaming at him to go back to bed, heavy and pounding, while his stomach does flips and promises to empty his already empty stomach even further. He goes back to bed, not caring it’s Thursday and he shouldn’t be missing all his classes. He passes out and when he wakes up, it’s late into the night.
He can’t be bothered by anything anymore. He knows his body has reached its limit, and Kenma knows a trip to the hospital would definitely make his parents worry, so he stays in. He doesn’t mention anything to his mother on her daily checkup on his wellbeing through messages, claiming to be busy and that’s why he hasn’t answered earlier. He drinks a cup of milk he has on his fridge and goes back to bed.
When he wakes up again, it’s almost 1pm and it’s Friday. He didn’t wake naturally, sadly, but it’s the pounding on the door what woke him. He groans, wanting to ignore it, but it doesn’t stop. His phone starts buzzing, too, and for a second he’s worried it’s his mother.
He gets up in a halt and mentions to open the door quickly. When he does open it, it’s not his mother who’s standing there looking anxious, thankfully, but it’s Kuroo. The same Kuroo who had avoided him for over a month now, pretending Kenma didn’t exist. Kenma doesn’t know whether to release a relieved sigh or to punch him.
“Kuro,” he greets quietly and his stomach clenches, but Kenma isn’t sure if it’s the hunger or the feeling of seeing Kuroo after such a long time without any contact at all. No messages, no visits, nothing.
“Hey,” he says just as quietly, and his confidence is not much present at the moment. “Can we talk?”
Kenma nods, and lets him in. It might be the end of this, he realizes, because what if Kuroo caught on his feelings and decided that he doesn’t want to be friends with Kenma anymore?
You know I’d rather drown
Than go on without you
But you’re pulling me down
Kuroo sits on the couch, hand running through his hair for a second. Kenma feels weird, a tension being built around them, an awkwardness that hasn’t existed for so many years. He sits on the other edge of the couch, staring at his own hands as he waits for Kuroo to say anything. He was the one who came, and Kenma will wait for him to start doing the talking.
“I was told you skipped classes,” he starts, feeling awkward. Kenma wants to pretend he’s not even there.
“Tired,” he says quietly, and the awkward silence settles in again.
He feels like he’s falling deep into the ocean between them and drowning, suffocating with the water around him – a water created by their problems, their miscommunication, the lack of everything they used to have – because of the ocean who grew there, right between the continents called Kuroo and Kenma.
“I’m sorry, Kenma,” Kuroo starts again but Kenma still doesn’t look at him, deciding he will ignore him for now. He doesn’t want to look at Kuroo and see the rejection. “I didn’t mean to push you away like that.”
“Yet you did it,” Kenma murmurs, head turning to his direction. It was out of his mouth before he had realized. “But it’s okay, Kuro. I forgive you. I guess I’m the one who should apologize.”
“Why would you apologize? You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Kuroo’s confused face should have been the first sign that something in this conversation didn’t add up. But Kenma ignores it and instead replies to him.
“I was the one who…you know,” he looks away, feeling self-conscious of himself. “Don’t make me say it.”
“Kenma, I am lost.” Kuroo says truthfully and Kenma looks at his face again. This time, he takes in the confusion in Kuroo’s face and Kenma feels like an idiot. He just assumed that Kuroo realized Kenma’s feelings for him and wanted to let him down gently. But, apparently, he didn’t, or he would have accepted him apology by now.
“Kuro. Why did you push me away?” he asks instead, and Kuroo chuckles nervously. It’s something only Kenma gets to see, the unsure part of Kuroo, but it’s still rare since he managed to build his confidence so well that he can always be using it. But, right now, he’s open in front of Kenma, looking unsure and nervous at once, making Kenma blink in confusion.
“I was…unsure. If you knew and didn’t reciprocate them. I guess you don’t, then.”
“Know what?” he pushes, and Kuroo sighs, running his hands through his hair again. He doesn’t meet Kenma’s eyes.
“My feelings for you,” he says lowly and Kenma almost asks him to repeat himself.
What.
“Feelings?” he echoes, more to himself then to Kuroo. But his friend still frowns and glances quickly at Kenma, feeling his little confidence to actually confess end right there. Stupid horned owl, he thinks angrily, I am never trusting Bokuto ever again.
“Romantic feelings,” he clarifies and Kenma manages a silent oh to form on his lips.
Kenma gets up, not looking at Kuroo. He thinks he’ll be kicked out of the house or something, until Kenma walks until he’s standing right in front of Kuroo and then…hits his head softly. Kuroo blinks.
“Ouch,” he says quietly and rubs his head. “I know I was a douchebag, okay? I’m sorry!”
He looks at Kenma’s feet and misses the tiny smile to play on the blonde’s lips. Kenma waits for a second and then nudges Kuroo to look at him by tapping on his shoulder. When he does look up, Kenma sighs.
“All that overthinking for nothing,” he murmurs and leans in, planting a soft, quick kiss on Kuroo’s lips.
It takes Kuroo about three seconds before he understands what happened. And by that time, Kenma is already back on his standing position, looking at him with soft, amused eyes.
“Hang on!” Kuroo says loudly, getting up again and making Kenma talk half a step back to accommodate a standing Kuroo. “You actually like me back?!”
Kenma frowns a bit, his eyes narrowing discreetly. “Do you think I would kiss you if I didn’t?”
Kuroo actually laughs this time, and then he throws his arms around Kenma, hugging him tight. Kenma slowly allows himself to put his arms around Kuroo’s torso, and he buries his face into Kuroo’s neck, like he had always wanted to do. He smells the coffee, the soap and perfume that Kuroo uses, and even the slightly smell of laboratory that Kuroo has since the beginning of the semester. They stand like that for an awfully long time, Kenma just breathing in Kuroo and suddenly remembering how not to drown anymore.
“I’m such an idiot,” Kuroo murmurs into Kenma’s hair. “I was terrified you would realize my feelings, so that’s why I threw myself into parties and shit. Bokuto gave me a lecture when he told me a classmate of yours was looking for me because you haven’t been in class for two days. I was worried, and he made me come and confess, because he knew I was the one driving you insane.”
Kuroo breathes in deeply and pushes Kenma away softly to hold his face between his hands. He looks at him with adoration, regret for his past actions and love. It makes Kenma’s heart skip a beat, and the emptiness he would feel in his stomach is suddenly gone. He finally feels at ease.
“I’m sorry. And I love you, kitten. Just in case you haven’t noticed.”
Kenma rolls his eyes but smiles softly at him. His hands hold Kuroo’s wrists gently, and he wants to kiss him. So he asks.
“Kiss me, you nerd.”
And Kuroo does.
He kisses Kenma gently first, like he’s unsure how to proceed. He just presses his lips against Kenma’s, their breaths mingling, and eyes closed. Slowly, Kuroo opens his mouth to Kenma’s and they move to their own rhythm, their noses bumping and teeth crashing firstly, but at some point it’s not a problem anymore. As they get the hang of it and they grow used to each other’s mouth, Kuroo slips his tongue into Kenma’s mouth, softly caressing his tongue with his own and making Kenma sigh contently mid their kiss.
When the kiss ends, Kuroo rests his forehead against Kenma’s.
“Please tell me you have eaten,” he whispers and Kenma groans. Of course, the moment is over. “You totally haven’t.”
“I forgot,” he says and Kuroo leans back to give him an unimpressed look. Kenma groans again.
“I’m ordering takeout right now,” he declares, sitting down with his phone in one hand and the other pulling Kenma with him – as if to ask him to sit at his side, which Kenma does. “Something healthy. You’re too thin, kitten!”
Kenma blushes slightly at the nickname, which used to be annoying now feels kind of endearing. Boyfriend nicknames, his mind supplies, and then he hides his face on Kuroo’s shoulder, pretending to be anything else but blushing and ashamed.
Kuroo’s arm circle his shoulders. “Don’t complain, okay?”
He nods – now into his neck – and smiles softly to himself, hearing Kuroo ordering some food for both of them. Kenma wonders if, perhaps, the universe had given them a second chance, a shot at fixing things, making them turn not back into normal, but into something more. He feels thankful, even though he feels insecure inside about this and about his own opinion on what would be Kuroo’s deserving relationship – but, for once, he decides not to dwell on it. There are butterflies swimming on his stomach, his head feels lighter and there’s a tug on his heart telling him to go with it. He knows the anxiety and fears will come, but he’ll worry about those later.
Kenma loves Kuroo. And Kuroo loves Kenma.
The oceans that put the continents that they are apart finally disappeared. Kenma breathes.
He breathes.
I want you
I always will