Work Text:
Shouyou said his name like he could never tire of it.
“Kenma, Kenma, Kenma,” over and over, constant and rhythmic. He said it as he bounced, unendingly excited—excited over him. “Kenma, Kenma, Kenma,” as he sprinted forward, louder and higher with each step.
Shouyou was puzzling for a myriad of reasons, most of which came back to one sole point: he, quite possibly, could never tire.
It was exhausting. It was exhilarating.
Kenma didn’t think much of love. No one could ever explain to him succinctly enough what it meant. He didn’t think he’d ever experienced it. Interest, he knew; curiosity, he knew; but love? It slipped right through the cracks in his tightly organized mind, something hazy and intangible. Kenma didn’t know love.
Something colored his voice, though, when he spoke to Shouyou.
His throat tightened, and his chest pulled, but pleasantly so—and wasn’t that new and strange? He sighed, “Shouyou,” breathing out the heady fog that filled the empty spaces in his brain when he was near.
Every time Shouyou said his name, bright and electrifying, Kenma thought he might understand love.
Love was what ran through Shouyou’s veins, pushing him further and higher and faster. Love was what rang through his voice, loud and pure. Love was “Kenma, Kenma, Kenma.”
Kenma didn’t know if love could be “Shouyou,” tiny and soft and slow. It didn’t seem right to call his quiet awe love, not when Shouyou himself embodied it so fully. Not when it couldn’t spark through the air, couldn’t soar. Not when it floated around his head instead of coursing through his blood.
“Shouyou” was a wish, a plea; but not love.
~~~
Kenma said his name like a prayer.
“Shouyou,” he breathed out, wispy and reverent and beautiful, every time they met.
He’d glance over through his sheet of hair, his piercing gaze softened by shadow, by distance, by affection and—
Shouyou didn’t know how to speak so softly. Didn’t know how to drop his register low to whisper Kenma’s name for his ears only. Shouyou was excitement and movement and energy, and it seeped into every word out of his mouth. No matter how much he wanted to just sigh, Kenma, Kenma, Kenma, it could never feel so private, so intimate.
Instead the syllables bubbled up through his throat, tumbled out for the whole world to hear. He couldn’t stop it, once he got going. All it took was a flash of blonde and brown, a catch of light on feline eyes, and he burst from the seams.
He could feel the splitting pull of his cheeks, the excessive scrunch of his nose. He knew it was too big, too loud, too much, but his head was stuffed to the breaking point with Kenma, and the only way he knew how to clear it out was to yell, to jump and move and let the words spill out of the cracks.
Kenma, Kenma, Kenma.
It tasted like cinnamon on his tongue; spice in the back with the pop of a “K”, melting into a sweet tingling on his lips as they pulled together. He wished he could let the sound linger. He wished he could leave it to float, wisping away across his skin. Wished he could give it the respect it deserved. But Shouyou didn’t know how to slow down. How could he, with such heat simmering underneath his skin? Shouyou was excitement, and movement, and energy, but above all, he was passion.
“Shouyou,” drifting off of Kenma’s lips, was love.
Kenma, Kenma, Kenma.
Could it be love, too?