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The crackling bonfire burns loud and bright.
Kenma kneels before the flames, staring as the photographs he had thrown into the pit burn into ashes that fly around in the sky and sink into the dead, decomposing ground. The flames reflect into his caramel eyes; Kuroo notices this more than anything.
“Doesn’t it feel nice to see him burn, Kuro?” Kenma asks, snapping his head around to see Kuroo’s eyes. The latter stands a few feet behind, only half-watching as the past five years of his life burn before him. He would be lying though, to say that it didn’t feel at least somewhat freeing to see the chains that used to bind him now break from his tired wrists.
“I guess so,” Kuroo replies, looking into the dark sky towering above him and his best friend. In the constellations he sees the face of his past lover, the boy who had cheated on him and rocked his entire world, breaking all of Kuroo’s possessions alongside his heart. The boy hasn’t given Kuroo his hoodies back, either, and Kuroo has been most upset about that out of all the things he lost in the fire.
Kenma stares intently into the flames he created. “It gives the same satisfaction as actually watching him burn, doesn’t it, Kuro? No one can hurt you anymore if you burn them, right?”
Kuroo takes a deep breath, biting his lip. He nods, though his mind is scattered and he knows he isn’t over Yaku. He wonders though, was it really that he was actually in love? Kuroo knew he was desperate for affection, but was he ever truly in love with Yaku? He knows that nobody else had loved him as deeply as Yaku did, and that he misses more than anything. That Kuroo is sure of, even with his best friend standing right in front of him holding out a hand to take.
“Kuro?”
“Yeah, Kenma?” Kuroo brings his arms together and looks at his feet. The fire is bright and hot and burning with stupid, stupid love. Yet, Kuroo shivers beneath the icy full moon. He pushes the feeling of numbness and emptiness aside. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
Kenma nods. “Of course. I hate to see you suffer, you know. I’d do pretty much anything for you,” He laughs, though it really isn’t much of a laughing matter when he knows deep down that he means it. He would climb mountains for Kuro, set ablaze neighborhoods full of people, and even cross his thigh with a knife like Portia proving her love for her husband Marcus Brutus.
And Kuroo has no idea, his mind is too clogged with nostalgia and the ache of yearning for his terrible lover to come back to him. He wants nothing more than for one more kiss, one more hug, one more sleepless night full of loving and talking and becoming breathless on Venus as his ex takes him once more, keeping him awake until the morning when he feels raw and numb and needs comfort other than the kind to be found in sex.
“Thanks, Kenma. You mean a lot to me,” Kuroo rambles, his mind wandering aimlessly as he thinks about Yaku—now with a new boyfriend who can meet his sexual expectations and love him for who he is.
Yaku always complained about how much time Kuroo spent with Kenma, though Kuroo never understood why. It was never much of an issue to him, of course he found nothing wrong with how intimate his relationship with Kenma had become. It wasn’t usual to spend days at a time with your best friend drinking together and sleeping outside on the deck of his fancy house, creating bonfires every other weekend and dedicating the flame to whatever asshole that annoyed them that week.
Never would he have expected that one day Yaku would become the subject of their lighter fluid. Now that it’s actually happening, he doesn’t know how to handle it. He stares into the blue flames at the base of the fire, his gaze empty as Kenma tends to the pit and laughs when the fire blooms higher. The photos of him and Yaku havefully disintegrated; Kuroo notes that Kenma is just having his fun now.
Kenma glares into the flames and watches them grow taller, full of his spite and pure hatred and rage for the boy who had taken his Kuro and broken him into two. He knows that Yaku never deserved his Kuro, but he also knows that he has no real place in Kuro’s heart. He has never been any object of desire to anyone, really, and definitely never to Kuro. He has never been a creature of love, he has never held Kuro like Yaku has. Even now, he can’t kiss Kuro better, all he can do is offer the lure of strong whiskey and the allure of playing with fire.
He couldn’t make Kuro come, but he could always make the two of them fly so high that the desire for freedom from sexual bonds and commitment brought Kuro more pleasure than any half-assed handjob ever would.
Alas, the pleasure never lasted.
Tomorrow, Kuroo would be back to yearning for love and affection, as if the sleepless night of running wild through the dark, mysterious forest with his soulmate had never happened.
Kenma wonders if he’s the spectre himself, not the creatures in the forest. He’s a creature of the forest too, after all. None of the ghosts have as much built up anger and sadness as he does.
He takes a deep breath and steps back from the fire. “Alright, I think that’s enough for tonight. You want to spend the night at my place, Kuro?”
When he turns to see his best friend, Kuro is looking up at the sky as if there’s something there other than the subatomic stars and the full moon. Kenma looks up; he sees nothing out of the ordinary aside from the tears upon his Kuro’s face.
He’s quick to put out the fire and take Kuroo’s hand in his, leading him through the forest away from the firepit where the photos of Yaku sit charred as ashes against the cement blocks Kenma had made a circle of once upon a time when he had been mentally stable.
“Kuro, it’s okay to be upset,” Kenma says, watching the trees with his keen cat eyes as they rustle with creatures. Kuroo follows close behind, gripping onto Kenma’s hand as the two trudge forward through the dark, dark night. “But you deserve so much better. You deserve someone that loves you so much more than that.”
Kuroo nods, though Kenma doesn’t see it. He just hears sniffling from behind him, and he smells the sweet scent of ash and fire smoke clinging to Kuroo’s jacket. He reassures Kuroo by squeezing his hand, leading him forward through the unknown enmities of the thick forest.
“Do you love me, Kenma?” Kuroo sniffles, stopping and causing Kenma to stop with him. The two turn to face one another, though it’s difficult to see through the darkness. Kenma fiddles with his phone until the flashlight turns on, and he puts it between their two damaged bodies. The pained look in Kuroo’s eyes pushes Kenma to confess his unrequited love almost immediately. Almost .
Detached, Kenma lies, “I do love you, Kuro. You mean a lot to me.” The words are true, but Kenma’s voice is ingenuine as there are so many other words he would say if he were to ever out himself to the love of his life.
Kuroo sniffles, then moves to put his hand over the flashlight on Kenma’s camera. He presses his palm against it until they can’t see one another, once again. He takes a deep breath. “Can I kiss you, Kenma?”
Kenma doesn’t object.
Kuroo keeps his palm on the flashlight, but he uses his other hand to cradle Kenma’s neck and bring their faces closer. As soon as Kuroo feels Kenma’s breath hot against his face, he breaks the distance fiercely and slams his lips against Kenma’s, the fire in his heart raging enough to light the entire forest for the rest of the night. Kenma, slow as a ghost, takes the hand that doesn’t hold his phone and brings it up to Kuroo’s cheek where he lets it rest, brushing his thumb over his cheekbone, covered with dried tears.
“You’re so hot, Kenma,” Kuroo mumbles, deepening the kiss and pushing Kenma’s phone out of his hand. It falls into the dirt and immediately illuminates their heated makeout session, though Kuroo’s eyes remain closed; he doesn’t mind. He uses his now free hand to grab Kenma’s waist and press their hips against one another until their navels touch, keeping his hand tight on the top of Kenma’s hip.
Kenma moves both of his arms to wrap around Kuroo and ends up with hands in his hair, where he tugs mercilessly, driving their lips together and apart just as Kenma wants. Within the same minute, he moves his lips down to Kuroo’s neck where he starts to bite and tug at the skin, kissing harder and harder until Kuroo moans aloud and pushes Kenma off of him, creating distance so that the two can look at one another, shrouded in the artificial light flooding from Kenma’s phone on the ground, covered in dirt and bugs.
“Kuro…,” Kenma whispers, looking up at his best friend and soulmate with tunnel vision. The world tilts around him, veiled in the color of a pretty pink rose. He takes a shallow breath, his bubblegum heart lilts with it and opens a cage of hummingbirds in his chest.
“Kenma…,” Kuroo replies, just as dazed and deeply in love as his counterpart. “Holy shit.”
Kenma giggles, bending over to pick up his phone and dust it off. He turns the flashlight off and puts it in his hoodie pocket, stepping forward to lean his chest against Kuroo’s. “I’m in love with you, Kuro.”
The trees whistle in the wind, the presence of creatures crowds the space in Kuroo’s ditzy mind. He’s unable to control it when a few tears slip down his cheeks and he laughs, finally feeling right. He’s never felt this right before.
“I love you too, I think,” Kuroo whispers, laughing as the wind picks up and the stars hide amongst the smog and dark clouds in the sky. “This feels so right.”
Kenma grins, reaching his hand out for Kuroo to take. As if the action is telepathic, Kuroo reaches his hand back out in the dark and it finds a home in Kenma’s.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Kuroo whispers, over and over, the words hollowing out in Kenma’s brain and turning quickly to adoration. The two tighten their grip on one another’s hand, the love profession crushed between their sweating cold palms.
The two begin to walk forward once again, quietly overwhelmed for a few silent minutes until they reach the opening mouth of the forest and exit the belly of the beast. The sky is cleared by the time the two leave together, hand in hand as they stand in the parking lot, empty aside from Kenma’s truck parked in the very last spot on the right of the pavement.
“Do you want to spend the night at my house?” Kenma asks, swinging his arm with Kuroo’s. It feels natural for their fingers to be intertwined, though Kenma’s are swallowed by the size of Kuroo’s. He finds it comforting, but Kuroo feels almost nothing but bone and skin against his palm.
“Will I get to sleep in your bed with you?” Kuroo asks in reply, leaning until his head falls on top of Kenma’s.
“I can’t promise I’ll stay awake long enough to do anything with you, but I don’t mind,” Kenma whispers, taking his keys out of the back pocket of his jeans and unlocking his car. He and Kuroo depart to jump into the driver and passenger seat of the truck, respectively.
“I’m not looking for anything more than to be by your side,” Kuroo says, smiling. He puts his seatbelt on and watches Kenma with hearts in his eyes, adoring him, thinking that this is the best rebound he could ever ask for.
Kenma snorts. “How sweet,” he says, though it stakes him right through the heart. He knows he’s not good enough to be a prospective partner to Kuroo, but he doesn’t think that Kuroo would blow him off with sweet nothings. He would prefer that Kuroo spit the truth out, just so he knows for sure and can accept that nobody is going to want to have sex with him, and that he is going to remain a virgin for the rest of his life, even if he is famous and loved by his fans.
“I’m serious!” Kuroo says, laughing. “I don’t just want you for your body.”
Kenma bites his lip, but can’t help himself from replying. “Do you want me at all for my body?”
“Kenma, we’ve been together for what, thirty minutes?”
“I’ve been in love with you since we met as kids, Kuro.”
Kuroo stops talking, and unfortunately for him, so does Kenma. He offers no further answers, instead turns ghostly pale and upset as he drives the two of them back to his house in silence. Once they reach his driveway, he takes a deep breath.
He parks the car and turns to his best friend. “I want to kiss you so bad. But I don’t want to be ‘just a rebound’ to you, Kuro. Am I more?”
Kuroo lies with a voice like honey spilling sweet into Kenma’s ears. “Of course you are, Kenma. You mean everything to me.”
“Okay. Can I kiss you, now?”
Kuroo grins. “Don’t you want to go inside first?”
“No,” Kenma replies, immediately unbuckling his seatbelt and throwing himself over the console separating him and Kuroo. He grabs onto the hood of Kuroo’s sweatshirt and uses it to pull Kuroo towards him, kissing him just as passionately as he had kissed Kenma before in the forest. Now they are in the car, still covered in artificial light but this time by the headlights of Kenma’s truck.
“Kenma,” Kuroo utters, though beneath Kenma’s lips it’s difficult to get any words out. “You’re so sexy. I wish I had kissed you sooner.”
“You think I’m sexy?” Kenma smiles, breathing into Kuroo’s mouth. He tugs on Kuroo’s hair once again, nuzzling their noses together as he kisses again and again, leaving Kuroo gasping for air and panting in beautiful noises that Kenma wants nothing more than to hear over and over again.
“I think you’re way sexier than Yaku,” Kuroo says, though it’s wrong of him to bring up his ex and he knows it when Kenma immediately stops kissing him and peels their torsos apart, sitting upright in his seat. He pulls the keys out of the ignition silently and grits his teeth as he opens his door and shuts it, expecting that Kuroo will make his way inside at some point.
Kuroo follows only a few feet after Kenma, opening his door and hopping out of the car quickly, shutting the door and running towards the open garage of Kenma’s house. He slips through just in time for Kenma to close the door.
Kenma, however, holds open the door into his house for Kuroo. He looks at his best friend and perpetual lover sternly, but with care and compassion. He tries to understand how heartbroken Kuroo is feeling right now, but it’s hard for him to imagine. There’s no excuse to bring up your ex by name during a make-out session with another person.
Kuroo walks through the doorway and snakes an arm around Kenma’s waist, pulling him inside. He flips on the light switches; he knows Kenma’s house better than his own. He helps Kenma untie his shoes, bending down and kneeling before his best friend with a smile.
“Thank you, Kuro,” Kenma whispers, watching with flushed cheeks as Kuroo kneels on the floor to help him take off his sneakers. Once he finishes, he takes his own shoes off and stands up. He smirks.
Then, he swoops down and lugs Kenma over his shoulder. The latter laughs as Kuroo readjusts his weightless body, deciding on carrying him to his bedroom bridal style. Kenma cooperates, digging his face into Kuroo’s broad chest as he’s walked to his bed by Kuroo and carefully laid out atop the covers.
“You’re so cute, Kitten,” Kuroo says aloud, waiting for a reaction with a grimace. He’s satisfied as Kenma blushes bright pink and hides his face in his hands. Kuroo watches him with a smile, stripping off his pants and changing into a pair of pajamas that he keeps in the bottom drawer of Kenma’s dresser. While he’s up, he grabs pajamas for Kenma as well and throws them at the boy laying on his bed.
“Thanks,” Kenma murmurs, changing quickly and quietly. He then grins and looks Kuroo in the eyes. “Kitten, huh?”
“I thought it suited you well.”
Kenma giggles. “It’s cute.”
Kuroo flops onto the bed and shuffles under the covers, throwing them over Kenma as well. He grabs Kenma by the hem of his shirt and tugs him closer. Kenma nuzzles beneath Kuroo’s chin and sighs, delighted, when Kuroo wraps his strong arms around his new boyfriend and holds him tight to his body. Kenma drowns in his broad chest, his nose nestling against Kuroo’s sternum.
The two fall asleep together almost immediately, the clock on Kenma’s nightstand striking four in the morning.
--
Kenma wakes up alone to the soft sound of Kuroo talking a few rooms away.
His heart sets ablaze as soon as he rises to his feet, though he’s unsure as to why. He slips his hoodie back on--he doesn’t know why he had it off in the first place. He remembers going to sleep with it on, he wonders what had happened during the night for it to be on the floor instead of covering his cold body.
He sees Kuroo’s hoodie lying on the floor as well. He leaves it, knowing Kuroo will come back to get it at some point, probably.
He wanders out of his bedroom and towards the sound of Kuroo’s voice, eventually finding him in the kitchen. Kenma cocks his head when he sees Kuroo on the phone, and worries when he hears the intense sound of Kuroo’s voice. The latter sighs loudly into the call.
“I know, I know,” Kuroo whispers, his neck craning until his eyes rest on the ceiling. He looks at the water stains with eyebrows knit—Kenma swallows the guilt in his stomach about never having told Kuro about the leak when he tells Kuro everything. Kuroo’s attention is suddenly diverted, however, by yelling from the person on the other phone line. He looks back down and bites his teeth together. “I’m sorry.”
Kenma stays silent from behind Kuroo, guilt spreading in his chest as he looks up at the water stains once again. He never had enough energy to take care of the leak and ended up calling someone to do it instead of doing it himself. He knows that if he tells Kuroo now, he would be upset that Kenma hadn’t called him. But Kenma understands that he’s upset, of course he would be. He’s never known how it feels to be the second option to call in Kenma’s life before. He knows nothing.
“Yaku--” Kuroo says, to which Kenma pauses his thinking and now puts all of his attention on Kuroo from a few feet behind where he stands quiet and unseen as a ghost, the phantom king coercing Kuroo to abandon his lover and fall in love with the dead and useless.
Kenma couldn’t hear the voice talking to Kuroo now, but he could tell by the tension in Kuroo’s shoulders that he was yelling and Kuroo was shaking in guilt and fear, answering to his ex-boyfriend (the cheater) by saying, “I’m sorry.”
What did Kuroo have to be sorry for? Kenma didn’t know--and he wasn’t sure he wanted to as Kuroo turned around and met Kenma with a pair of fearful, wide doe eyes. He cocks his head, waiting for Kuroo to say something else, but he stays silent as if he can’t make the words leave his mouth: he stands in shock, mouth open and eyes bulging in front of the wraith with wicked wings and an unlovable body that stands before him. Kenma takes one step forward, taking initiative to find out what Kuroo refuses to tell him.
“Kuro, what’s going on?” Kenma asks aloud, voice soft enough that the other party isn’t able to pick it up across the phone. “Is everything okay?”
The static air in Kenma’s kitchen grows stale and spins with secrets. Kuroo chokes on his own perjury and coughs a few times, face growing red from embarrassment as he fakes listening to his phone in order to keep Kenma from crystallizing into a demon and possessing him.
Kuroo keeps their eye contact solid and refuses to break it as he eventually replies to the phone call, but not Kenma. He says, “Yakkun, how is that fair? You cheated on me first.”
First.
Kenma doesn’t need to hear anything else to know exactly what the topic of the phone call is. He grits his teeth together and walks up to Kuroo, stopping close enough that their noses touch. Kenma grabs onto Kuroo’s shirt tightly and becomes an immovable gargoyle as he listens to Yaku’s reply over the phone.
“Tetsu, we said we would resolve this. I apologized to you, you told me that you wanted to try again. So you went and cheated on me with your little ‘disciple’ ? Doesn’t seem like you want to resolve anything!” Yaku yells, loud enough for Kenma to hear every single word.
Kenma clenches his teeth. Kuroo doesn’t deserve his silence, but he debates for a few moments on whether or not he should let Kuroo’s relationship live or if he should break it into a thousand painful pieces. He decides on the latter, thinking that Kuroo deserves to feel like shit for using his best friend like this.
“That’s funny, Kuroo told me you two broke up before he told me he loved me,” Kenma snaps, eyes cold and focused intently on Kuroo. The latter breaks their eye contact and attempts to take a step back, but Kenma moves forward with him.
“What?” Yaku yells, voice artificial and broken over the phone. “We never broke up! Tetsurou, why would you say that!”
Kuroo’s breath catches in his throat, eyes stinging as Kenma grimaces because he knows he’ll never be able to tell Kenma the truth of how badly he wants comfort from the only constant person in his life that he went as far as to lie, biting his teeth to his infidelitous boyfriend and exposing his tongue to the air for his loyal best friend.
He’s severed the parachute ties, now he grows ghostly pale as he realizes there’s no one to save him but himself. Kuroo doesn’t think he deserves to be saved. He lets himself drop.
“You said we were done, Yaku! Does that not mean we’re broken up?”
Kenma inhales deeply through his nose, the scent of Kuroo comforting him even when he could very well be Kuroo’s whore. He doesn’t dare let himself fall into Kuroo’s chest, though, nor lay his head atop Kuroo’s bare shoulder.
“I never said that! Why are you making shit up? Just to make yourself seem like the better person in front of your fucking whore?”
There it is , Kenma thinks. He grimaces and unclasps the bicep of Kuroo’s arm, then backs up a few steps. He sighs aloud, voice quivering.
“Kuroo, is it true? Are you cheating on him?” Kenma asks, lightly and seemingly innocent. He’s close to falling apart, Kuroo can see it too. He sees the purple bags beneath Kenma’s tired eyes, he sees the way Kenma slouches with his shoulders turned inward. He sees Kenma’s arms wrapped around his own ribcage, hugging himself because he knows nobody else will.
Kuroo can’t lie, he knows he can’t do it anymore.
“Yeah,” Kuroo breathes, sighing loudly. Yaku remains silent across the phone. “I am. But--”
Kenma cuts him off, throwing up a hand to silence him. Kuroo doesn’t deserve excuses. He never did, but now more than ever Kenma knows that he’s worth so much more than to be used as a toy whenever Kuroo feels down about himself.
“That’s all I wanted to know,” Kenma replies, though his tone is unreadable. Kuroo’s stomach grows with unease as he tries to decipher his best friend’s body language, but he can’t figure it out. Not until Kenma raises his head and establishes tired eye contact with Kuroo. “Now get out of my house.”
Kuroo listens, not even bothering to grab his hoodie from Kenma’s room before slipping his shoes on and silently walking out the front door, clicking it shut softly behind him.
Kenma looks up at the leak in his ceiling, taking a deep breath.
Then, alone, he breaks down.
--
Kuroo knows where Kenma will be tonight. As the sun sets over the hill his house sits upon, he knows exactly where Kenma will be. He ponders alone in his bedroom on whether or not he should visit his best friend to confess and apologize, but he knows deep down that it’s a bad idea to confront Kenma when he’s sure to be playing with fire, metaphorically and quite literally.
As Kuroo imagines, Kenma is currently on his evening drive of thirty minutes to the park. When the latter arrives, he envelops himself in the trees, per usual, as a creature of the fire; a habit of nature. He parks his truck in the same spot as always on the crackled concrete of the parking lot, then grabs his wooden box full of Kuroo’s belongings from his backseat and props it on his hip.
He ventures into the woods with no flashlight to guide him. He doesn’t need one, his heart takes him exactly where he needs to go.
Within minutes, he approaches the clearing where his makeshift fire pit sits. The sun is gone, but the bright flames licking his heart light his way as he throws his box onto the ground next to the old lawn chair he put up a few years ago.
He grabs a few logs from his stack of firewood beside the chair and throws them around until they outline the cement blocks marking the pit, panting through clenched teeth all the way. His palms fill with splinters; he doesn’t bother to pull them out before fishing a lighter from his pocket and a newspaper from the box he dragged along.
Kenma’s breath is shallow, yet focused as he lights the bottom logs of his pile and watches them slowly but surely spread into a gorgeous bonfire. He finds peace in the reflection of himself alight in the orange-blue flames, his hair messy and slightly singed from all of his pyro misadventures. His eyes are wide, deadset, and very tired. His hands shake, he trembles with his short breaths until he collapses to his knees only inches away from the blaze reaching taller and taller into the sky.
After a few dazed moments of staring, he grabs the box he brought and pulls out the laminated picture sitting on top. He looks at it briefly--it’s from high school. He and Kuroo stand in their volleyball jerseys, and Kuroo is wearing a smile, making it seem like their team didn’t just lose during their national tournament quarterfinals. Kuroo’s arm is snaked over Kenma’s shoulders in the picture. It makes the real Kenma shiver.
He takes the photograph and dips the edge of the thick paper into the fire, watching in satisfaction as it begins to crumble immediately beneath the undeniable heat. Once the flames start to reach his fingertips, however, he dumps the picture into the pit and refuses to watch as it falls apart entirely.
His eyes sting--whether it’s from the smoke and ash or the memories he burns, Kenma doesn’t know. He’s not sure he wants to, either, as he grabs another picture and flings it into the flames without even taking a glance to see which one it is.
“You know, Kuro,” Kenma huffs, grabbing photo after photo and throwing them into the fire pit. “I hope you’re happy.”
Kenma is unable to prevent his tears as they fall down his face. The crackle of fire is no comfort compared to the bulwark of Kuroo’s arms, holding him during the night and hugging him whenever he asked.
“Can you see yourself with him forever?” Kenma asks, a sob taking over his body. His hands shake harder, he tries to grab another photo but it falls out of his fingertips and flutters back into his box. He groans in frustration, letting his body drop to the ground. His head lies upon the grass, staring at the fire and smoke in the dark night sky with no one to accompany him but his ghostly figure and the bugbears lurking in the forest around him.
He’s always felt like one of them more than he’s felt human. The night is the only thing that has ever loved him, alongside the fire and the dirt and the grass. He thought that Kuroo loved him--but Kuroo lied. Kenma is used to being lied to. He’s used to being the second best, the other option.
“Kuro,” Kenma breathes, his tears dropping into the soil around him and fueling the weeds he lies in for one more day. The salt water stings his cheeks, he does nothing about it. Maybe he deserves this. “Do you feel bad at all?”
Kenma sniffles. “I do. I feel bad. I feel like shit. I shouldn’t,” he says, shaking his head in the dirt. His hair creates the illusion of twigs scattered on the ground around him as the fire cracks and burns loud and bright. “But you should.
“I hope you feel like shit. I hope Yaku breaks up with you and you’re left alone with nobody to use anymore, and I hope nobody falls for you ever again. I hope you’re sitting in your room crumbling to pieces sobbing harder than I am, feeling worse than I do, wanting to punch your wall with anger worse than I have for you.”
Kenma grabs a handful of dirt and pushes himself up. He sits upon the grass and reaches over to the box sitting beside him with hands now calm enough to grab fistfuls of photos and chuck them into the blazes with no remorse whatsoever. This time, he watches them until they’re ashes.
It’s comforting.
That is, until the sound of someone stepping on a twig rings out in the empty air behind him. Kenma snaps his head around, hands clutching the soil like tree roots holding on for dear life. His eyes are flashes in the dark night; it’s approaching midnight.
Standing in the opening to the clearing is a familiar face, doe-eyed with a clamped mouth and hands nervously intertwined at the waist, silent mouth screaming, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ into the echo chamber of his head.
Kenma snarls. “What are you doing here?”
Kuroo bites his lip, taking a step back from Kenma’s offensive attitude and canines gleaming in the moonlit, firelit sky. He knows he shouldn’t have come, alas he did. He knows Kenma is vulnerable, raw, and upset; but he never expected to see him like this, tearing himself apart and melting into his most pure, monstrous form.
“Kenma…,” Kuroo whispers, the words echoing in the ashy wind.
“What do you want,” Kenma snaps back, lifting himself off the ground and rising to his feet where he stands tall, muscular, and covered in thorns and fire. Kuroo swallows. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Kenma’s voice rings like a phone call waiting too long for someone to answer. It’s eerie, it makes Kuroo shiver even when he’s made warm by the fire all around him. He knows he shouldn’t be comfortable. Looking at Kenma reminds him of that more than anything else in their shared environment.
“I… I wanted to apologize, Kenma.”
“Then do it. Apologize.” Kenma turns his back and grabs a singular photo from the box. “But I won’t listen.”
Kuroo inhales a deep breath full of ash. He coughs it out, lies spilling out of his mouth and into the weeds at his feet. Kenma ignores him, examining the picture in his hand before turning back around to face his best friend. He holds the photo out for Kuroo to see.
“This one is from my first year of college when you took me to the aquarium. You kissed my head by the manatees and bought me a stuffed one,” Kenma says, voice light and comfortable. In foil, he flings the photo into the fire and grimaces.
The fire cracks and shoots upward, Kenma scoffing as it extends higher into the clouds. He thinks about how difficult it’ll be to put this fire out, and he revels in the thought. It reminds him of how difficult it was all these years to be used over and over again, it validates the numb anger he feels towards the situation.
“Kenma…,” Kuroo says again, but it holds nothing but exasperation. It has no effect on Kenma, who picks up another photo and examines it.
“This one is from your eighteenth birthday. We’re both smiling here, but I’m forcing it because you aren’t smiling at me. You’re smiling at Yaku, who’s holding the camera.”
Kenma throws the paper into the fire, a burst of relief breaking his chest apart. He sighs, allowing all of the frustration to air out and spiral into the sky as a dead spirit. Kuroo clenches his teeth to keep from crying again.
“Kenma, I’m sorry. I love you, I really do.”
Kenma searches through the box, then comes up with a journal. It’s his own, it’s bound by cardboard. He wonders how well cardboard burns.
“This was my Kuroo journal,” Kenma says, handing the journal out to Kuroo. “Take it. Look at it, I even filled up all of the pages. I wrote down every time you used me or abandoned me since we were sixteen.”
Kuroo clenches his hands, as if he’s refusing to take the book. Kenma shrugs, and just as Kuroo is about to speak more on his apology, Kenma flips open the book and decides to read aloud whatever entry he lands on.
“April sixteenth, my third year of high school. I wrote, ‘Kuro told me three weeks ago that he would take me to one of the college parties he’s been having so much fun at. Tonight, I dressed up and even put mascara on. Kuro never came to pick me up, but called me two hours later to tell me that he had taken Yaku instead.”
Kuroo looks at the ground. “I’m sorry.”
Kenma ignores him once again, just as Kuroo used to ignore him when he would ask for more time together or to go somewhere with him. He flips through the book on his own, silently, and comes up with nothing but tears. He purses his lips to attempt to keep a sob back, but it fails. He breaks apart and cries, looking up at the sky as he wails loud enough to wake all of the creatures surrounding him and his ‘best friend’.
He takes the journal and throws it into the fire as hard as he can, then yells when the fire chokes on the cardboard and sparks fly around him, landing on the ground and in his hair.
“I should have treated you better, Kenma, I’m so sorry.”
Kenma does just as he said he would. He doesn’t listen, instead he reaches into the box and pulls up the last picture he brought. One where Kuroo kissed him on the lips and the two closed their eyes as the camera flashed.
Kenma laughs through his tears, staring at the picture. He shakes his head, then turns around to face Kuroo with tears trailing down his ashen cheeks.
“No one can hurt you if you burn them,” He waves the picture up for Kuroo to see, then throws it hard into the bonfire, staring Kuroo dead in the eyes. “Remember when I told you that, Kuroo? Do you remember that?”
Kuroo winces upon hearing Kenma use his full name with no emotion whatsoever. He could tell Kenma was burning out fast; and he knew he could do nothing about it but watch as his untimely lover’s ghostly, ashy skin is illuminated by the flames.
Kenma takes a deep breath, though it’s shaky from the weight of his sobbing. He digs into the box by his side and pulls out his final item: one of Kuroo’s hoodies. With no hesitation, he tosses it into the fire. He turns his back to Kuroo and watches the fabric fall apart. He sighs. “You know, Kuroo, it does feel nice to be wanted, even if only for a night.”
Kuroo bites his lip hard. He knows the feeling, and that’s when he realizes that Kenma doesn’t .
Kenma’s mistakes and sadness and broken pieces light on display for Kuroo to finally see in whole as he cries into the flames he sets and screams at the ashes of his untimely relationship with the boy he’s loved for almost his entire life.
He realizes that Kenma was never the haunted bugbear that plagued his brain with insecurity and doubt and emotional turmoil.
It was always himself.
And Kenma always deserved better than a monster for a best friend.