Chapter Text
“So when are you gonna ask him about it? You don’t need me to tell you that this isn’t gonna go away just because you decided to ignore it, right?”
Kenma wasn’t exactly sure how he’d become friends with Terushima, or even when it had happened. Sure they’d had that one module on business management together back in first year but back then Kenma had still been so painfully shy that he hadn’t really spoken to anyone on his own course, let alone the random other students that he had the occasional class with. And although he remembered playing a couple of volleyball matches against him and his team back at high school, they still hadn’t really communicated outside of the obligatory ‘thanks for the game’ when Nekoma without fail triumphed against Johzenji. Besides, he’d always found Teru a little intimidating. More than a little, actually, if he was being honest with himself. Because Teru had always been everything Kenma wasn’t: loud, sociable, energetic… the list went on. And yes, Kuroo was also all those things and he didn’t have a problem talking to Kuroo, but then Kuroo was just… Kuroo. They’d been friends longer pretty much their entire lives, so it made sense that Kenma felt comfortable around him.
What didn’t make sense was how quickly he’d begun to feel comfortable talking to Terushima. Yet here he was, sitting having coffee with him and openly talking about whatever it was that was going on with him and Kuroo. Not that he knew what was going on. That was the whole point. But Teru was kind and a good listener and actually, contrary to popular belief, pretty damn smart. And somehow Kenma felt like he could open up to him. Not the whole way, perhaps, but enough that Kenma considered him a friend. A good friend even. Maybe even his best friend, these days, since Kuroo had started acting so strangely around him.
“I’m not…” Kenma bit his lip, looking down at the remaining blobs of cream that floated on the surface of his coffee. “You know I can’t…” He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, more out of habit than anything else.
“Why the hell not? It’s not like you’ve got anything to lose, is it?” Teru shuffled along the bench they shared in their usual booth of the coffee shop. They met here a couple of times a week after class and always sat at the same table, which Kenma liked because it was hidden from view around a corner so he didn’t have to deal with the worry of other people staring at him.
Kenma let his hair fall in front of his face as he continued to stare into his coffee, wrapping his hands around the now cold cup and gripping in tightly. Teru was wrong. He had everything to lose. Kuroo was his best friend, the only person he fully trusted. And now he was acting like someone Kenma didn’t recognise, avoiding his messages and even making excuses to cancel plans, which he’d never done before in the whole time Kenma had known him. Even when they did get to hang out, things were strained between them as though an empty void was opening up between them. There was none of the usual familiar affection and gentle teasing that Kenma was so used to, and he hated it. Hated the fact that Kuroo was drifting away from him, and especially now that...
“Kenma, babe…” Teru repositioned himself again so that he was close enough to drape his arm loosely around Kenma’s shoulders. If it were anybody else, apart from maybe Kuroo though he wasn’t even sure about that anymore, he would have pushed him away but for some reason he didn’t mind it when Teru touched him. Maybe it was because Teru was just a generally affectionate person, or maybe it was because Kenma knew it was his way of showing kindness. Either way he’d decided long ago to push through his initial discomfort and just let him do it, and he was glad he’d been brave enough to make that decision. After all, he couldn’t go through his entire life being scared of being touched by anyone other than Kuroo. Especially when it looked as though Kuroo might not even be part of his life for very much longer.
“Kenma,” Teru said again, his voice firmer this time. He gave him a small nudge that made him look up so that he was forced to peer at Teru through a curtain of blonde. “Do you wanna tell me what’s really going on here? Because the way I see it is that Kuroo’s being a dick and you gotta call him out on it before he starts thinking it’s okay for him to treat you like that.” Teru reached up to tuck Kenma’s hair behind his ear, his fingers combing through it gently as he continued to talk. “Because it’s not okay. It’s not anywhere near to being okay. You do know that, right?”
“I know,” Kenma sighed, pulling one leg up onto the bench and turning to face Teru. He did know. He wasn’t an idiot. And he didn’t want to be someone that people thought they could just fuck around with. God, he’d spent the last two years fighting his shyness and forcing himself to appear more confident for that exact reason. So of course he knew it wasn’t okay. He just didn’t know what to do about it. Because if he and Kuroo couldn’t even have a conversation about something normal, something easy and straightforward, how could they possibly discuss the far more serious issue of what was happening to their friendship. And how could he, of all people, even think about initiating that? Yes, he was a little more confident now but still… he wasn’t sure he’d ever be confident enough to do that.
“I just…” Kenma put his coffee cup down and brought up his hand to his mouth to nibble on the skin around his thumbnail, frowning at himself when Teru grabbed hold of his wrist and pulled his arm away. “Thanks,” he muttered, his hands returning to the coffee cup where at least his skin was safe from his destructive habits. He’d never been a stranger to unhealthy coping mechanisms but he hated this one the most because it was so hard to hide since he tended to bite away at his skin until it was literally torn to shreds and bleeding. He’d started doing it somewhere along his third year of high school, an anxious thing probably, and by the time he’d realised what he was doing it had been so ingrained that he hadn’t been able to stop it. Teru was helping though. Kuroo too, though not so much lately.
“You gonna finish that sentence or not?” Teru laughed, taking a sip of his own coffee.
“Not…” Kenma mumbled, running one hand across his eyes. Wow, this was exhausting. He knew he worried about a lot of shit, but one thing he’d always thought he’d be secure about was his friendship with Kuroo. Guess he’d been wrong about that…
“Wrong answer babe!” Teru laughed again, more loudly this time, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he ruffled Kenma’s hair. “You said you wanted to talk about this, right?” He paused and Kenma nodded his head slightly, although he was beginning to wish he’d just kept the whole thing a secret. “So talk about it! I know I’m great but even I can’t read your mind. If you want my help, you gotta tell me what’s going on. You do want my help, right?”
“Yeah…” Kenma pulled his other leg onto the bench and crossed them both in front of him, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I… I actually do, Teru.” He swallowed, his hands trembling as he thought about how to say everything that was going on in his head. He hadn’t been planning on admitting this right now, especially not when he wasn’t completely sure about it himself yet. But this was Teru, normally the least perceptive person he knew yet, at least where Kenma was concerned, almost impossible to keep secrets from. And by the slight smirk that had been plastered all over his face all afternoon, he probably already had enough of an idea what was going through Kenma’s mind. Maybe he’d even realised it before Kenma had, he wouldn’t put it past him. “I think…” he covered his face with his hands, his mouth suddenly dry and his heart pounding in his chest. He shook his head, his hand immediately to his mouth again. “This is all so fucked up and I don’t know what to do.”
“Well firstly,” Teru started, lightly wrapping his fingers around Kenma’s wrist and pulling it away. “You need to stop doing that.” He raised Kenma’s hand to his face and twisted it to the side, frowning as he inspected Kenma’s thumb. “You have beautiful hands and it would be such a shame to fuck them up.” He ran his finger over the calloused skin around Kenma’s thumb, his frown deepening when he saw how red and raw and painful it was. Kenma flinched as Teru’s fingertip grazed a particularly sore spot and Teru shook his head, the all-too-familiar smirk returning. “I mean, they are pretty fucked up already but I’m gonna do my best to stop you from doing any more damage. How can you play volleyball if your hands fall off?” He laughed as though he’d made the best joke in the world, lowering Kenma’s hand down to the bench but keeping a hold of it, his skin surprisingly soft and warm and reassuring.
“Teru…” Kenma bit his lip, sighing again. “You know I barely play anymore…” It was true. He hadn’t played much since high school in spite of both Teru and Kuroo’s attempts to get him to join the university team. He’d never been that passionate about the game anyway, and uni work kept him too busy to attend practise frequently enough anyway. He still played occasionally when Shoyo came to visit, though playing volleyball with Shoyo had always been way more fun than playing without.
“Well then,” Teru laughed again. “You can’t play your little game things if your hands fall off. Is that more persuasive for you?”
Kenma let out a small snort of laughter in spite of himself, uncovering his face and adjusting his hair so that it hung comfortingly around his face. He always felt more confident when his face was hidden and he was going to need all the confidence he could muster to get him through what he was going to say next.
“Secondly,” Teru continued, squeezing Kenma’s hand. “You need to say something to him.”
“I know,” Kenma groaned, flopping backwards so that his head leant against the wooden casing of the booth. “I need to find out why he’s acting like this. You said that already!”
“Well yeah. That.” Teru ran his thumb over the back of Kenma’s hand, his voice softer now than before as though he was aware he was treading on shaky ground. “But also… you need to tell him about the other stuff too. No, don’t look at me like that.” He chuckled softly when he caught sight of the look on Kenma’s face. “You know which other stuff I’m talking about… That’s the whole reason you’re so scared to confront him about everything, isn’t it? Because you wouldn’t just be losing a friend, you’d be losing a whole lot more?”
Kenma hesitated. If he admitted it to Teru, he’d have to properly admit it to himself, and the thought of doing that was terrifying. But then Teru knew already, didn’t he? And Kenma really really needed to talk to someone about it. There was only so long you could keep a secret like this before it started to eat away at you, and it had definitely started to eat away at him…
“Yeah…” Kenma nodded, his words catching in the back of his throat. He’d been on the verge of maybe actually saying something to Kuroo when he’d started acting weird, and the more Kuroo had pulled away, the more he’d realised he couldn’t bear to lose him. The more he’d realised the meaning of the weird butterflies in his stomach every time Kuroo held him in his arms. The more he’d realised the meaning of his racing heartbeat every time Kuroo played with his hair. There were a lot of things he’d realised recently, the worst of them being that he could have left it too late to say something. And if he tried to speak to him about things, there was a danger that Kuroo could push him away altogether, and he didn’t think he’d be able to cope with that. At least this way he still had a little bit of him left… And a little bit, as much as it hurt, was better than none at all.
“Oh Kenma…” Teru’s words were laced with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. “I’m not gonna pretend I have the answers for this since I can literally only imagine what you’re feeling right now. I’m willing to bet it sucks though.” He placed a finger under Kenma’s chin and tilted it upwards. “But I do know one thing for sure. You have to talk to him, and sooner rather than later.”
“Teru,” Kenma sniffed, running his hand over his eyes again. He rarely cried and he wasn’t about to start now, no matter how painful this was. “I don’t know… I don’t know what to say to him. I can’t lose him, I just can’t.” He sniffed again, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear the tears he could feel forming in the corners of his eyes. “I think… I think…” He trailed off. He couldn’t say it. And if he couldn’t say it in front of Teru, how the fuck was he supposed to say it to Kuroo.
“You think you love him?” Teru finished the sentence for him, wordlessly sweeping away the single tear clinging to his eyelashes. Kenma nodded and Teru laughed again. “Babe,” he raised one eyebrow, smiling softly. “I know you do…”