Work Text:
Kenma arrives home as the sun in the sky sits colored crimson upon the hill where his home lays to rest.
It’s late in the evening and Kenma feels tired, business meetings usually bring about this type of feeling in him. Sitting for hours on end as someone yaps on and on about things he already knows—it’s his least favorite feeling in the entire world. He hates it with every fiber of his being, but still Bouncing Ball requires he come in for meetings at least once a month to make sure his employees stay in line and to show them a little bit of authority. Kenma doesn’t particularly care to be in power, he only cares for the money that comes from it. Criticizing his employees and firing them is not something he enjoys doing in the slightest. It always thrusts a heavy weighted feeling of guilt upon his chest, sitting fat on his heart when he has to let anyone go.
He comes home feeling saddened and tired by the fact that not only did he have to sit through a long meeting today, not only did he have to wake up before nine in the morning to get there, but he also had to fire some of his workers who were caught investing in stocks off of another corporation. He didn’t really appreciate what they did, but he knew deep in his heart that it wasn’t something he found to be ‘fireable’, so to speak.
Opening his familiar front door with his familiar key was soothing, it makes him feel at least a little bit better as he walks inside his home to be greeted by the familiar scent and surroundings. He sighs, taking in the comforting environment as he places his bag on the floor. It makes a soft thud as it hits the polished wood, a few papers fluttering out of the unzipped front pocket as well. But Kenma ignores it and closes the door before walking out of the foyer and through the front hallway, loosening his tie all the way. That was another thing that made his day worse. Formal wear. He hated the fact that he had to wear it today.
“Wakatoshi?” Kenma calls out, his voice airy yet heavy with his stress. He takes off his tie and walks into his bedroom, immediately stripping off the rest of his fancy clothes. He takes no precautions to keep them from wrinkling as he throws them on the floor and decides that they can be something to deal with another day, if his fiance decides not to pick them up for him.
“Kenma?” A familiar voice calls back, leaving Kenma to sigh in relief. He smiles slightly as he hears his name fall off of Ushijima’s tongue, biting away his toothy grin as he continues to undress.
“I’m in the bedroom.” Kenma opens his drawer and grabs a pair of sweatpants, then migrates across the room to Ushijima’s dresser and decides to find himself a shirt to wear from his drawers.
Kenma slips on one of his volleyball shirts (not a jersey, one of those cotton promotion shirts he had gotten this year from playing on the Adlers team), as well as his sweatpants, before making his way out to the kitchen where he assumed Ushijima would be. It’s where he spent most of his time, anyways. Whether he was cooking or reading or looking at tweets or calling someone--he was always in the kitchen.
Kenma pads softly through the wooden hallway floors in his socks. As he reaches the kitchen, he sees his fiance of about a month now sitting at their island on his phone. His eyes squint looking at it, which Kenma takes as him being on social media. Kenma remembers having to show Ushijima back when they first started dating how to turn the text size up on his phone because he couldn’t see the tiny words because he refused to go to an eye doctor and to buy prescription glasses or contacts. Kenma knows that the big text doesn’t translate over onto Twitter though, so it makes him giggle to see Ushijima with his phone so close to his face.
All in all, he was just happy to be away from work and back home with his silly boyfriend.
“I was going to come find you,” Ushijima murmurs as he looks at his phone, “But I got distracted.”
“S’Okay,” Kenma whispers in reply, wrapping his arms around Ushijima’s sitting frame and letting his head drop into Ushijima’s shoulder. “I missed you.”
Ushijima puts his phone down on the table and looks up at Kenma, though awkwardly since Kenma was basically burrowed in his neck. “You seem stressed.”
Kenma shrugs. “A little bit, I guess. I hate going into the office, even if only for a day.”
“Yeah,” Ushijima replies, solemnly shaking his head in agreement. “You aren’t used to it.”
Kenma nods in reply, then decides to change the subject. “What did you do today?”
Ushijima takes Kenma’s hands in his own and rests them on his chest, falling back into Kenma’s small body. “I went to practice then came home and napped.”
“Very eventful day, I see,” Kenma laughs, leaving Ushijima to smile. He loves Kenma’s laugh so much, it never fails to make his chest feel so unbelievably warm inside. As if a sunflower was blooming in his heart, he used to think when he and Kenma first began to talk together.
“I guess so.” He smiles still, tipping his head back for Kenma to see. His ambered eyes peer down into Ushijima’s, so warmly and lovingly. “What did you do at work today?”
Kenma’s eyes lose their shine as he thinks about his day’s events. He sighs. “I… We had that monthly team meeting where they just repeat everything I do then the managers ask me to scold their employees so they work harder but I don’t want to because I think everyone is doing so well right now… Then I was given a list of people that I was told ‘needed’ to be laid off and since the managers know better about our workers than I do… I had to fulfill the list. And I hate firing people.”
Ushijima nods, listening all the way. “I get it. You don’t want anyone to feel bad because of a decision you made in only a few minutes.”
“Exactly.”
“If it means anything, I think you’re doing really great. At work, at school, in your streaming… I’m really proud of you.”
Kenma’s heart swells with affection. “Thank you, Wakatoshi. I think you’re doing well too. You’re very strong, and you’re such a great player…,” Kenma replies, taking his hands from Ushijima’s chest and brushing them across his biceps. “You’re hotter now than you were in high school.”
Ushijima scoffs, taking Kenma’s hands off his arms and kissing them, then dropping them. They find their place almost immediately back on Ushijima’s muscles, then up to his shoulders where Kenma rests all of his weight.
“Do you want to come to bed?” Kenma asks a few minutes after, his hands moving their way up Ushijima’s body to play in his hair. “I’m so stressed out. I need you.”
Ushijima furrows his eyebrows and looks at Kenma, confused. “For sex?”
Kenma shakes his head, snorting. “I mean, that’s not really what I meant. But I guess I can if you want to.”
“No, I’m tired,” Ushijima replies. “I would rather just hold you.”
“Me too.”
Ushijima stands up from the stool he sat at and lets Kenma take his hand, leading him to their bedroom that they have shared ever since Kenma helped Ushijima move in. His belongings now occupy half the room--which Kenma loves. The only thing he doesn’t quite adore is that someday soon he’s going to have to explain to his friends and family why he shares a house and a bedroom with a man who could most definitely support himself and buy his own house.
Kenma felt terrified to come out, and that was another stressor added on to the evergrowing stack of worries that he kept filed in his head. But Ushijima was always the one to take them out, one by one, and shrink them until they were so small that he would keep them in his heart to reassure Kenma that there was nothing to worry about, and that his anxieties were safe with him. This was another thing that Kenma loved about Ushijima so dearly, his blunt ability to see right through him when he was feeling depressed or stressed or desperate. His blunt ability to tear him down and pick him right back up, to make him feel truly as if his entire world was completely and utterly safe within Ushijima’s big hands.
Alas, Kenma takes Ushijima to bed and curls up right beside him, a smirk lining his lips as he does so. “You’re so warm,” he sings, wrapping his arms tightly around Ushijima’s torso. The latter was quick to respond to the affection by bringing one of his hands up to cradle Kenma’s head against his chest, using the other to slip up Kenma’s (well, his) shirt and rest lightly on his lower back.
“You’re cold,” Ushijima replies, brushing his thumb against the cold skin of Kenma’s back. He sighs lightly upon feeling the soft, comforting pad of his lover’s palm and fingertips on his body. He relaxes quickly, letting his taut muscles and strained bones loose to resolve themselves as they lay between Ushijima’s strong, protecting arms.
“Sorry. It’s really cold outside tonight.”
“That’s okay. I love you even though you’re extremely cold.”
“Maybe if you keep holding me like this then I’ll warm up.”
“I hope so. I’m going to make you keep your socks on the entire night if you don’t. I don’t want your cold feet on my legs.”
Kenma sighs dramatically, curling his feet into Ushijima’s left calf. “It feels so comfortable though,” he whines in reply, snuggling himself even further into the muscle of his fiance’s chest. He traces circles upon Ushijima’s collarbone, trailing down to his breast and back up to where his shoulder meets his neck. “You’re so strong.”
“You tell me this every day,” Ushijima says, abruptly turning to his side and taking Kenma with him, still encased so deeply in his embrace. “When will you stop obsessing over my strength?”
Kenma snorts. “I won’t. You’re so much sexier when you’re strong.”
“What if I wasn’t? What if I had bones like Hinata Shoyo and I was small and not strong?”
“Shoyo is strong,” Kenma scoffs in reply. “And I know you would never let that happen. You would not live with yourself if you weren’t strong and able to overpower everyone.”
Ushijima ignores the latter part of his statement. “How do you know Shoyo is strong? Have you been touching his biceps too?”
Kenma giggles softly, looking up to see the stern expression on his lover’s face. “Are you jealous, Wakatoshi?”
“How do you know he is so strong?”
Kenma rolls over and props himself up on his elbow to see Ushijima face to face. “Because I sponsored him, babe. I haven’t touched his biceps, if that makes you feel any better.”
Ushijima nods. “It does.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“I don’t want you to touch any other men.”
“I wouldn’t. You know that.”
Ushijima nods again, cupping Kenma’s face in his palm as he does so. His eyes soften over and catch Kenma’s attention, leaving him to ogle and coo with a smile.
“You look so beautiful when you let your guard down like this,” Kenma whispers, keeping his eye contact with Ushijima all the while. “You don’t have to be so serious all the time. You can be yourself around me. I won’t make fun of you like the others do.”
Ushijima looks down, but Kenma uses his pointer finger to raise his chin back up.
“Okay? You can let yourself go around me. I won’t leave you or laugh at you or anything. I love you. I want you to feel like you can let yourself relax when you’re with me.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m dumb. I’m not.”
“I know you aren’t.”
“I know things fly over my head a lot and I take everything so straightforward but I don’t mean to be robotic or weird or anything,” Ushijima rambles, and Kenma listens, his finger still resting under Ushijima’s chin.
“You aren’t weird or robotic,” Kenma says aloud, making sure that his fiance hears it clearly. “And I’ll cut out anyone who thinks that way of you. You’re strong, and intelligent, and you’re funny, and I love being around you and talking with you. I love listening to you talk about your interests and volleyball and all of the manga that Tendou sends you to read.”
Ushijima’s face lines with a blush. “You really think that way of me, Kenma?”
Kenma nods. “Of course I do. I love you so much, you mean everything to me.”
Ushijima shifts in place, moving closer to lie his own head on Kenma’s chest. Kenma lunges his small arms around Ushijima’s built body, holding him close in his arms. Ushijima closes his eyes against Kenma’s collar, listening to the sound of his heart beating. He sighs and asks quietly, “...Do you want to come out yet?”
Kenma feels his heart freeze. “I think so.”
It continues to beat.
“Are you afraid of what people will say about us dating?”
Kenma sighs. “A little bit. But I love you. I’m never going to stop loving you. And if someone can’t accept me because I love you, then that’s on them.”
“So, only Tendou and Kuroo know right now?”
“Yes,” Kenma replies, his breath escaping his throat. “I’ll have to take you to meet my parents. And yours will want to meet me. And you’ll have to tell the team. And I’ll have to tell my fans and my coworkers. And the entire world will know, and they’ll judge.”
“I know. But I think I’d rather be able to love you in public than to continue worrying about what everyone else thinks, don’t you?”
Kenma bites his lip. “I want to be able to hold your hand in public.”
“Then let’s do that. We don’t have to make any official statement. We can just tell our friends and family. And if other people find out, then so what?”
“How are you going to tell your friends?”
Ushijima pauses to think, his hands moving through the tresses of Kenma’s brunet-blond hair. “I think I will post on twitter on our two year anniversary coming up. That way my teammates and friends can see.”
Kenma sighs. “But so will your fans.”
“I guess you’re right.” He shrugs, moving his head to nuzzle underneath Kenma’s chin perfectly. “But I’m okay with that. Are you?”
“I… I think so.”
“How about we tell our parents first? And you tell your friends. Then if it doesn’t feel too scary, I will post about us.”
“That’s a good idea,” Kenma replies, sighing out his anxiety. “You always know how to calm me down. I wish I knew how to help you relax.”
Ushijima smiles into Kenma’s chest. “You do. Just being around you helps me to relax. Especially on bad days, or after we lose games. I know I can get really upset and it seems like you can’t do anything to help me… but you do wonders, Kenma. Your words and your kisses always make me feel better.”
“My kisses, huh?” Kenma teases, leaning down to press a kiss to Ushijima’s hair.
“Yes, your kisses. You’re a really great kisser, you know,” Ushijima replies, grinning. He shuffles in the bed, holding steady to Kenma’s arm to prop his head up on Kenma’s pillow alongside him. He plants a kiss on Kenma’s nose.
“I am? I didn’t know that. I thought you were the good kisser in this relationship.”
“No,” Ushijima says, shaking his head. “It’s you. You were my first kiss.”
Kenma scrunches his nose up. “You were what, twenty two when I first kissed you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you and Tendou used to mess around in high school.”
“He wasn’t a good kisser.”
“So I’m not your first kiss.”
“You were my first good kiss,” Ushijima argues, his nose scrunched up as they bicker back and forth. But only a grin sits evident on Kenma’s face as he knocks his forehead against his professional volleyball player boyfriend’s.
“Good. Because I’m going to be your last good kiss too,” Kenma replies, placing a soft kiss upon his lover’s lips. “I’m going to marry you, and we’re going to be together forever.”
Ushijima nods. “Of course we will. I wouldn’t have agreed to your proposal if I didn’t think we were going to last.”
Kenma snorts at his bluntness, then giggles. “I love you. I love everything about you.”
“I love you too,” Ushijima replies, smiling and giggling alongside him. It fills Kenma’s heart with longing, so much so that he forgets about all of the anxiety he felt earlier today and now feels nothing but warmth and love for Ushijima.
He places a kiss on Ushijima’s lips, but instead of pulling away quickly he stays, lengthening their kiss into a languid display of affection, where Kenma curls his fist into Ushijima’s hair and cradles his cheek with his other hand, and where Ushijima rests one hand on Kenma’s face and the other on his ass, pulling their bodies closer together and closing the gap between them until they meld into one, Kenma pulling at tongues and Ushijima letting him do it, letting him kiss until their lips are sore and their lungs are full with roses instead of air.
“When do you think you want to come out to your parents?”
Kenma smiles through his disheveled hair and heavy pants for air. “When does practice end for you tomorrow?”