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Kenma hates parties.
He hates the smell of sweaty bodies and booze and fruity smoke mixed together. He hates the loud. He hates the music booming from the speakers, the repetitive yell of “one more shot! ” from a bunch of university students, the obnoxious laughter, and the sound of two people sucking face—which feels weirdly too close to his head to his liking.
(He resists the urge to push the heads away from him and instead just sits still.)
He hates crowds. He doesn’t understand why so many people like to squeeze themselves in a small space all to have a “good time”—if drinking and yelling and noise could even be considered one. He's pretty sure half the people in this room are strangers to each other. Yet here they are, dancing like they met a long time ago.
It's strange, Kenma thinks, how people can just openly unravel themselves like this in a place full of strangers. Maybe it's the booze kicking in. Maybe it's the environment. Maybe it's the people who all have their own lives to worry about and come here for some kind of release, he guesses. But either way, it's strange. Weird. Kenma couldn’t understand it.
And that’s probably why he hates parties. There's nothing about it he understands at all.
His eyes scan across the room from where he's seated on the couch with Hinata. The living room is dim, lit only by blinking party lights taped to the walls and ceiling. He sees so many faces, only a few he could recognize. He sees Tanaka and Nishinoya doing some kind of dance they’re showing to Kiyoko, who only watches quietly, half with concern, and the other, interest. Hitoka is beside her, face scrunched up with what Kenma can only recognize as disbelief.
He sees Lev, that beanpole , long arms flailing around as he attempts to dance to the music. Tora is beside him doing the wave. It seems like they’re having another useless battle that has no relation whatsoever to being a volleyball ace but somehow Lev makes it to be one and Tora always falls for it anyway. Fukunaga, Shibayama, and Inuoka cheer them on. There's a flurry of faces and movements everywhere else, and Kenma's social and energy battery is draining by just looking at them.
He turns to Hinata, who's in the middle of going on a rant about how his snotty blockmate keeps looking down on him just because he failed a test once. And now they have to work on a project together that requires them to meet nearly everyday. And about how he doesn’t know what he'll do when he hears another one of those “Hinata dumbass! ” comments of his.
“Can you believe it, Kenma? I fail a test literally one time, and he calls me a dumbass everyday,” Hinata whines. ''He's always peering over my shoulder when I'm typing, too. But we’re on google docs, Kenma, google docs!” His hands talk along with him.
Hinata always has this way of telling a story that makes you unsure of where to look. But Kenma is used to this. “He doesn’t even need to look at my laptop.”
Kenma sips on the apple juice in his cup. Lame, he knows, for a student his age to be drinking apple juice at a party, but another thing he hates is the bitter trail that liquor leaves on his throat. He'd tolerate it more if it had juice mixed in it. He could add some booze to his drink, but he had no plans of getting drunk tonight, not when there are too many unfamiliar faces to witness the kind of drunk that he is: clingy, and flushed, and—yeah, he'd rather not recount those memories.
Kenma turns to Hinata who huffs dramatically and leans on the sofa, arms crossed on his chest. Kenma suggests that Hinata let loose because maybe that’s how Kageyama is. But Hinata is defiant and complains about why he has to be the bigger person when Kageyama gets to bitch around all the time and act like a king . Kenma watches for a few seconds as the cogs in Hinata's head turn when he goes silent.
With a mischievous glint in his eye, a hand on his chin, Hinata yells, “I got it!” And it takes all Kenma could not to fall off the couch and spill his drink because Hinata is so erratic and loud that despite meeting him at Kenma's last game at nationals two years ago and keeping touch, he still can’t get used to his abruptness. He shoots Hinata with a glare as he adjusts himself. The latter just laughs him off.
“Listen, Kenma. No— Kenmaaaa, listen.” Hinata pulls Kenma to face him. “What if...” He trails off, and oh god, Kenma doesn’t like where this is going. “What if I annoy him back!”
Kenma blinks. Hinata says it like it's the most amazing and most valuable piece of information he figures out. He says it like it's not ridiculous. And childish. He scrunches his nose when hinata explains how he'll be the most annoying project partner ever, and how ecstatic and triumphant he'll be when he blows Kageyama's fuse.
Kenma loves Hinata and all, but sometimes he wonders what goes on in his friend's head. He likes hanging out with him; he's more within reach now that they’re both in the same university. He just wishes that their hangouts would stop being unplanned, though, ones held at loud parties he doesn’t even wanna be at. Wishes for them to spend time maybe at a quiet park to talk or in his room where they can play that one game Hinata's been wanting to finish since forever.
But this is alright, he thinks. Hinata is loud and bright and friendly and he can talk for the both of them for hours when in social situations like these. He drowns out another one of Hinata's tales, catching bits and pieces of the story, and nodding absentmindedly when need be. He fiddles with his fingers, feeling empty and bare without the cool surface of his game console.
Kuro, that fucker. He mentally curses his childhood friend to hell and back. He recounts a few hours earlier when the man himself barged into his apartment (at which Kenma instantly regretted giving him a spare key), dragged him away from his computer and out the door. Kuroo has the audacity to bribe him with the Nintendo switch Kenma didn’t know he stole from him just for the sake of making him come.
“Kuro, put me down,” Kenma tries to crane his neck to look at Kuroo from above his and his friend's shoulder. It's futile, though, because Kenma is hanging on Kuroo's shoulder as the latter carries him like a sack of rice. “This is embarrassing....”
A chuckle is all he gets in return. Kenma grimaces and slaps his ass.
“Ow! Kyanma~!!” Kuroo's hold around Kenma's legs tightens. “I can literally fart in your face right now,” He threatens with a laugh, “don’t try me.”
"Well, maybe if you put me down? I have legs, you know.”
“Yeah, and let you run off back to your cat den? No thanks.” Kuroo gives him a look, which Kenma doesn’t see because he's busy glaring at the floor. The look softens as Kuroo heaves a sigh.
“Look, I just want you to get out there, okay? Chibi-chan is gonna be there. I'm sure it'll be fun.”
i’M sUrE iT’ll bE fUn , Kenma mimics, subtly rolling his eyes as he chips on the rim of his already empty cup, half-listening to Hinata.
Fun, he says, but the moment he steps foot in the venue he's out of Kenma's sight. Fun, he says, but Kenma has to wait on the couch uncomfortably until Hinata spots him.
Fun, he says, but Kuroo isn’t there.
Something bubbles at the pit of Kenma's stomach, makes him want to crush the cup in his hands in.... in what? Kenma doesn’t know how he feels.
He glances at Hinata—still talking—and the edges of his mouth twitch in a barely-there smile. Hinata is fun, too, he deduces, amidst the boy's story of that time he and Nishinoya-senpai ate at a buffet restaurant for free because they fit the height requirement for kids.
“I mean,” Hinata scratches the back of neck. Kenma's full attention is on him now, as he notes the tips of his ears flushing red. “I did get over my height complex back in highschool but— it still kinda hurts, y'know?”
Kenma raises a brow. He doesn’t get it.
Hinata groans, slumping on top of the couch pillows between them. “I'm in college, Kenma! And the lady thought I was an elementary student because of my height!” Hinata's eyes are wide when he looks at Kenma in exasperation. “I had five rounds at the buffet table just to spite them.” Hinata sits back up, arms crossed on his chest and huffs. “How's that for an elementary student's appetite?”
At first, Kenma was quiet. Then he starts it with an exhale through the nose, a few more times before it transitions to soft, quiet chuckles.
He doesn’t see how Hinata perks up at the sound, as he tries to bite his lip to quiet himself down. He doesn’t see how Hinata grins, because making Kenma react like this swells a different sense of pride within him.
Kenma is doubled over now, pillow tight within his hold as he laughs—yes, laughs . Because the image of sulky Hinata stuffing himself out of spite all because of a stranger's honest mistake about his age and small stature has Kenma floored . To an outsider, it would look like Kenma was quietly chuckling; but to anyone else who knows Kenma, this was an equivalent to him rolling on the floor and crying.
“You're so—pfft—stupid, Shouyou,” Kenma says in between fits.
“HAH?” Hinata tilts his chin up in a threatening manner—something he got from Tanaka—but its effect reaches barely half of its original, because Hinata is a ball of sunshine that can never look scary, no matter how he tries. It's a different matter when he's on court, though, with eyes of unwavering concentration that airs intimidation even to the top players back in Miyagi.
But now is different. As Kenma looks at the rip-off of the Tanaka-expression, his lips quiver in an attempt to hold back, but—alas, he's laughing in Hinata's face again.
“God ,” A wheeze. “—you're so dumb.”
“Hah?! Kenma, not you, too!” Hinata has his hands in his hair like the dramatic that he is. “Literally right before I came here Kageyama texted...”
Kenma tries to calm himself down while Hinata tells another tale. Deep breaths, deep, calming breaths. The last time he laughed like this was probably the time Kuro slipped on dog poop and fell on his butt onto another pile of said poo. Kenma wheezes at the memory, trying not to laugh even more. Instead, he closes his eyes and does his last round of inhales and exhales.
And when Kenma opens his eyes, his own pair meets another.
It's black; a very, very familiar pair of black.
It’s a shade of black that surges warmth from within him. Takes him back to two-player games in the living room, to ice-cream stops on the way home from school, and to the trust and understanding of a voice saying: when Kenma decides he likes something, he’ll pour his soul into it; so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
Time doesn’t stop, nor does the world quiet down for them. Music still blares loudly from the speakers, yells still scatter around the house, and Hinata's voice still sounds high-pitched in Kenma's ears.
The other pair of eyes sit across the room, on a crowded couch about a good twenty feet away from Kenma.
Kuroo doesn’t seem to notice Bokuto’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, or the crowd around him laughing at something his friend said, or the drink in front of him nearly spilling on the table.
He holds a red cup of his own, similar to Kenma’s, but neater and without a chipped off rim.
With legs crossed and lazy hands, Kuroo tips the cup towards Kenma, and smiles, all teeth and glinting eyes.
Kenma’s mouth quirks upward to the left in response, a ghost of a smile from earlier’s fit still on his face.
Having fun? Kuroo asks from across the room. It’s a decade-long friendship telepathy thing.
Kenma’s face immediately deadpans. And from twenty feet away, Kuroo laughs. Kenma’s sure he imagined the sound because there is no way he can hear that hyena from where he’s at.
Fuck, he’s so annoying, Kenma thinks, but the smile on his face is disgustingly fond. He watches Kuroo take out his phone and type. A few moments later, he receives a text.
From: super awesome cool amazing handsome kuro
>> wanna get ice cream later? [Read 9:53PM]
Kenma raises his brows at the text, but frowns at the contact name. Fucker probably changed it again. Sensing his realization, Kuroo sends another text.
>> with ur super awesome cool amazing handsome ultimate 100% best friend in the whole wide world universe milky way? (~￣³￣)~ ♡ (~￣³￣)~ ♡ (~￣³￣)~ ♡ [Read 9:53PM]
Kenma makes the ugliest, most disgusted face he can muster, reserved only for Kuro. He’s pretty sure he imagines the answering guffaw at that, too.
<< ur so annoying holy fuck [Read 9:54PM]
Kenma closes his phone and leaves it at that. When he looks up, he’s met with an accusing raise of a brow from across the room. Kenma rolls his eyes to the back of his head before taking out his phone.
<< won’t u be hungover tho?
>> ????
>> baby alcohol is like water to me at this point what are u talking abt <33
<< geez . So much for being considerate ig ://
>> kenma i know u want the ice cream stop playing wt me
<< 🖕🏽
>> i also know that ur mad at me rn so i’ll buy u two scoops <3333
<< and?
>> i’ll return the switch too <3333
<< deal
>> YAYYYYY text me when ur done talking wt chibi-chan ok? (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)
>> i’ll see u later kenma ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡
>> wait i can see u rn but u get what i mean ♡♡♡♡♡
>> hehe kenma ♡♡♡♡♡ (⺣◡⺣)♡♡♡♡♡
>> HEYYYYY REPLY 2 ME DONT LOCK UR PHONE WTF!!!!!#!!%>!!%!!! [Read 9:56PM]
Kenma sighs at the constant notifications showing up on his phone in a flurry of emojis and too many exclamation marks. The thing boiling at the pit of his stomach earlier is now long gone. Huh.
Kenma looks to Hinata, and finds a shit-eating grin on his friend’s face.
“Isn’t—”
“You were saying?” Kenma interrupts, a pointed look on his face. “What happened to the cat?” Yes, he was listening.
Hinata breathes a laugh, and lets it go.
“As I was saying,” he continues the story, although the irritating grin is still on his face (Kenma finds that it’s a common look between the people around him when he talks to Kuro, but he doesn’t want to elaborate on that any further; he doesn’t understand it).
“The cat just suddenly jumps on Kageyama’s head and sits there while we were...”
A small smile sits on Kenma's face while he listens to yet another event in Hinata’s somehow very interesting life. He’s thankful for him, really—in all his loudmouthed and theatrical glory—for the company he brings whenever they coincidentally meet at parties like these. Parties, which he never really does go to willingly; he’s either dragged to the event like earlier, or fooled into thinking he and Kuro were going to an apple pie store and eat.
Honestly? Kenma doesn’t know how and why he still trusts the guy at this point.
He takes a look at his phone and reads the latest out of thirty unread messages.
From: super awesome cool amazing handsome kuro
>> i love you :) [a few seconds ago]
When Kenma glances up, he’s met with Kuroo’s warm smile directed at him from across the room. With seas of people, loud music, and lukewarm drinks in between them, Kuroo tilts his head to the side, sparkling eyes still on Kenma.
Kenma scoffs and rolls his eyes, not bothering to hide the flush that creeps up the back of his neck. He raises a middle finger, before finally giving all his attention to Hinata, who—by the way—has been watching the whole scene unfold in front of him.
Kenma ignores the silly grin on his friend’s face, and thinks,
Maybe parties aren’t so bad after all.