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“Kei, for the last time, you’re unravelling. You’re not okay.”
The tall, blonde boy fixes his best friend a glare that would have sent anyone else scurrying. But not Yamaguchi Tadashi. He knew the exact glare Kei made that was all bark and no bite. And this was one of them.
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
“I won’t, thank you very much.” Tadashi sighs as he closes his book and stares at Kei. “You can’t just tell me to shut up when you know I’m right. And anyway, I won’t shut up either way. So you might as well sit through it.”
Kei huffs, then slumps against his chair. The library was empty enough; he could afford to make such noises that would otherwise have disturbed anyone else. Tadashi fixes him a look that he willfully ignores, except that he could feel it on his skin even when he wasn’t looking.
After a moment, he throws his hands up. “What am I supposed to do, then? It’s over, he’s gone. We’re a thing of the past and the only thing I can think of doing is burying myself in work and requirements until it stops hurting.”
To his credit, Tadashi switches his probing face to a more sympathetic one. “But you still love him.”
“So? He doesn’t love me. Not anymore, anyway.”
“You don’t know that. You haven’t talked about it.”
“Yeah we did. It’s kind of why I’m here, he’s elsewhere, and we’re not a thing anymore. It’s called a break-up, for your information.”
“I don’t count ‘hey this isn’t working out’ and ‘yeah I was getting busy with school anyway’ and then nothing a break-up. You guys were too tight for that casual bullshit. Where’s the closure? Where are the answers to ‘why’ or ‘was I not enough’ or ‘did I do something wrong’?”
Kei narrows his eyes. “You watch too many movies.”
“Am I wrong though?”
“I don’t want to know why I wasn’t enough for him to stay or if I did something wrong that drove him away. I have a shit mental state enough as it is.”
“See, that’s what I don’t understand,” says Tadashi exasperatedly, then ducks and lowers his voice when he catches the librarian giving him the stinky eye. “You guys were sickeningly in love. You complimented each other and the relationship was so damn mature. You helped each other grow, become better. What the hell went wrong?”
What did go wrong?
Kei didn’t know the answer to that; he’s much too afraid to find out (but Yamaguchi doesn’t need to know that). All he knew was that, Tetsuro needed his space, and Kei was happy enough to give it. Or he was, at the time. (No, he wasn’t, but he wanted whatever made Tetsuro happy.)
Never mind that Kei worked better when Tetsuro was in his life. It wasn’t about codependency; it was more of, they were each other’s personal cheerleader. Neither of them held the other back. They were stronger together, they held each other. They loved each other.
So what went wrong?
Despite himself, Kei had to admit: he still loves Tetsuro. No one had ever wanted him, desired him, or made him feel special the way Tetsuro did. And he knew his conscience was clear: he always tried to make Tetsuro feel wanted, appreciated. Loved.
Was that where it went wrong? Did Tetsuro figure out that Kei’s self-esteem had been depending on how much he made Kei feel wanted? Because it really wasn’t. Maybe it was, at the start. Even Kei knew he had self-esteem lower than Hades. But Tetsuro helped him build that up, helped him see himself for what he was worth.
It was never about him defining himself only as Tetsuro’s.
So it just comes full circle.
Kei huffs, turns over on his floor as he struggled to restart reading his books. Whatever. Tetsuro would have been a distraction anyway. Kei got in a course he wanted, and he has volleyball practices besides. If he wanted to make it into a professional league someday while having a career he enjoyed, he wouldn’t have space for anything else aside from academics, volleyball, and the small social life he has.
(That’s a lie, and he knows it. But it’s what he tells himself to make it a little more bearable.)
“Kei! Someone’s out on the street for you.”
Akiteru peeks into his younger brother’s room, nods toward the outside. Kei frowns as he looks out his window.
“The street? It’s raining. Let them in.” But he was already getting up.
“I did, but he won’t come in. He said he wanted to see you before anything.”
Kei frowns. ‘He’? Yamaguchi would just come barging right in. He slips a on pair of shoes while pulling his arms through a cardigan, then takes the umbrella Akiteru holds out.
It was properly pouring when he got out of the house. It was windy too, and the bottom half of Kei’s jeans were soaked through before he made it out of the gate.
And stopped in his tracks when he saw who it was out there, waiting. He scowls.
“Waiting out in the rain without an umbrella, really? How dramatic could you get?”
Kuroo Tetsuro smiles, that slow, charming smile that always knocks the breath out of Kei’s lungs. It still had the same effect, but Kei wasn’t about to admit that now.
“Hi.”
“Hi, yourself. What on earth are you doing?”
“I needed to see you.”
“After you said you needed your space? Spare me the bullshit.” Okay, maybe he was just over stage one and has successful moved over to anger. Just a bit.
“Kei.”
It’s the way he said Kei’s name, like it tasted of honey as he rolled it in his tongue. It was the way his eyes softened; the way his smile slips off his face. The way his shoulders slump and his fingers start rubbing against each other in uncertainty. The way his frame turns to face Kei fully, back curled forward in a pose of surrender, of remorse.
“What? Are you going to beg me to take you back?”
“I was wrong, Kei. I was afraid and I made the worst decision ever.”
“This is shaping out to be a long conversation. Can we reschedule?”
Tetsuro shakes his head, panicking. “No, please. If you have the time now, please, listen to me. I can’t… I won’t be able to do this sooner or later.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I won’t dare do this intoxicated.”
“Well you won’t let me reschedule and you won’t come in the house. Can we at least get in the shade? My legs are cold.”
Tetsuro pauses, considers. It was one second too long. Kei rolls his eyes and steps out of the gate, then starts walking down the street.
“There’s a bus stop close by. Follow me or I’ll go home.”
Tetsuro doesn’t share Kei’s umbrella. To be fair, Kei didn’t offer it. It was just there, a space beside him; apparently a space too close for Tetsuro’s comfort if he chose to stand with Kei.
They reach the bus stop and Kei shakes off his umbrella and what water he could from his sleeves and jeans. Tetsuro doesn’t bother. Kei watches him from the corner of his eyes.
His hair was matted over his head, the longer strands in front casting a black curtain over his eyes. His shirt sticks to his body, doing nothing to hide the outlines of his muscles that Kei had spent these past few weeks trying to forget the feel of.
Kei knew he was staring. He huffs again as he looks away.
“So. Out with it.”
Tetsuro sighs. He was quiet for a long moment otherwise. When he finally speaks up, his voice was soft, almost hesitant.
“I came to find you because I needed to tell you what I felt, why I let us go. But now that I think about it, it was a stupid reason. You’ll hate me for it.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. Just say your piece and let me judge it.”
“I was scared, Kei.”
This time, Tetsuro faced him. Kei says nothing, just stares right back. Tetsuro takes a shuddering breath, then continues.
“I was afraid of what might happen to us, of the end that might come. What we had was great; no, it’s the best thing I ever had and probably ever will. You were the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I was afraid of losing you, of losing what we have someday. I was weak for a moment, and I based my decisions about us on that.”
Kei fixes him a look of disbelief. “So you, what, ended it prematurely so that you don’t have to suffer in the future?”
Tetsuro winces. “See, I told you it was stupid.”
The blonde boy huffed. “Damn right it was. If you’d just told me…” Kei ran an impatient hand through his hair. “God. I know how thinking about the future messes you up. I know, I would have understood. Why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you trust me?”
Tetsuro’s voice shakes. “I did. Kei, I do. I trust you with my life.” He doesn’t know if it’s raindrops or tears that streak his face. It was inconsequential. “I love you, Kei. I want you. I want to be with you. I love you so much that losing you in terms other than mine scared me, and I thought it would be better if I let it go early.”
Kei sighs, then turns and cups Tetsuro’s face in between his hands. He doesn’t miss the way Tetsuro automatically nuzzles against his palms before he realized what he was doing.
“For someone so smart, that was incredibly stupid.”
Tetsuro laughs without mirth, avoiding Kei’s eyes. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“Hey.”
Tetsuro knew Kei has deep golden eyes; it was one of the things that pulled him in when they first met. But they looked the best right now: warm and trusting and open. And he knew he doesn’t deserve it.
“I love you, Tetsu. I love you so much, I didn’t think it would be possible. I can’t promise you anything; we’re too smart not to know that we don’t hold tomorrow. But you’ll always have me, and I want to hold today with you, every day.”
Something swelled in Tetsuro’s chest. If he had been alone, it would have overwhelmed him, like how it did the night he decided against what they had. “How can you love me? Why do you… when I…”
Whatever he had to say got stuffed back down his throat when Kei pinches his lips closed. Instead, he was fixed with a fantastic Tsukishima Kei glare. Condescension looked stunning on him, in a way that would have you shut up because you know that whatever he was about to say is right. And that was almost always true.
“You saw in me what I thought I’d lost a long time ago. You wanted me, and I couldn’t understand why at first. I started dreaming again, wanting again, after I met you. How could I not love a person who loved me so much, I started loving myself too?”
His lips move, wanting to say something, but Kei kept his fingers on them as he continued.
“Shut up, you talked your mouth off and look where that got us. You listen to me right now, Kuroo Tetsuro. I made the mistake to letting you go once and it almost ripped me apart. I’m never doing that again, so you better not come up with another bullshit reason why you want to break up with me because—”
Kei didn’t notice how his fingers around Tetsuro’s mouth had slackened; one moment he was going off, and in the next, soft lips met his and he was melting and drowning and falling all over again. The rain fell away to that high, static noise your brain makes when it’s trying to piece together information and fails.
When Tetsuro pulled back, he was holding Kei in his arms, their bodies slotted against each other like two pieces of a puzzle. It was everything about them that fit just right; there could be no one else. And Tetsuro was stupid to ever consider it.
Kei scoffed at how easy it was, how long they both waited before it came to this. Tetsuro gently kissed the smirk off his face and Kei chased his lips when he tried to pull back. Their faces stayed a breath apart, like they could fall back together at any second. And there would be no stopping them.
“You’re an idiot,” says Kei, breathless as he rests his forehead on Tetsuro’s.
“I could be your idiot.”
“You never stopped being my idiot, idiot.”
Tetsuro smiles slowly. “How could I have run away from you?”
Kei wraps his arms around Tetsuro’s shoulders, bringing them as close as physics allowed in that moment. “Beats me, but it’s never going to happen again. Deal?”
“Deal.”
***