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There’s a giant box on the doorstep when Kuroo comes home.
He peers at it curiously. It’s an ordinary brown box, significant only in the way that it’s large enough to obscure almost the entirety of the doorway from view, and the mosaic of shipping stickers plastered over its surface were truly astounding. Kuroo side steps around it cautiously, as if it could hurt him.
The box doesn’t hurt him. Because it’s a box.
Kuroo taps at it with his foot.
The front door swings open, its edges slamming against the wall. Kuroo winces, he’d been meaning to install rubber stoppers for a month now.
Kenma rushes out, and pushes the box inside the house with a speed and strength Kuroo hasn’t seen since their high school volleyball days.
“Wh—” Kuroo starts.
“Racing game,” Kenma replies, then disappears.
“Oh, okay,” Kuroo says.
—
Kuroo hadn’t had much of a free day the entire week, and as a result hasn’t had much time to unwind with video games like he usually did. As of late, he’d taken to bingeing Hades for a few hours on the personal Nintendo Switch that Kenma gifted to him for christmas because he wanted to exploit Animal Crossing’s in-game economy by having more than one Island. His fingers were itching to play, but he’d been too swamped to even step into the gaming room.
He’s surprised, then, when he goes to play the next day and sees Kenma hooked up to a giant racing simulator set up in the gaming room.
“You know,” Kuroo starts. “When you said racing game, I thought you meant, like, Mario Kart or something.”
“You could play Mario Kart on this, if you wanted,” Kenma replies, without turning to face him. His gaze stays focused on the screens in front of him even as Kuroo bends down to his level.
A string of expletives come out of Kenma’s mouth, first softly and in Japanese, then loudly, and in English. Kuroo hadn’t realized how proficient Kenma was at swearing in English. So quickly, too.
Kuroo glances at him curiously. “I—”
Kenma snorts, then flips a switch somewhere. Suddenly the surround speakers burst alive with sound. It’s a cacophony of voices, a mix of different accents and different languages.
“They’re just mad I’m beating them,” Kenma says to him in Japanese.
“Oi, are you talking shit about me again, Kozume?” A voice calls out, in English. A male voice, a little bit squeaky in a way that indicated youth, and very, very distinctly British.
“I’m just saying you suck, Norris,” Kenma deadpans into the mic, to which the boy on the other line cackles out a laugh. Kenma smiles in reply, which makes Kuroo smile.
“What’s this?” Kuroo asks, peering at Kenma’s set-up. The steering wheel wasn’t a wheel per se. It had buttons of all kinds, and even a tiny screen in the middle.
“iRacing,” Kenma replies.
“Talking to yourself, huh? Hope you’re not going too crazy, Kozume,” the voice, Norris , calls out again.
Kenma rolls his eyes good naturedly, “You wish,” he says. “See, just for that, oversteer.”
“Damn,” Norris replies. Kuroo sees the little icon in orange that says NOR drop down from 6th to 9th on what Kuroo assumes is the leaderboard. Predictably, KOZ is safely at a nice number 3 slot, with the leading two in sight in front of him.
“Deserved,” Another British voice calls out.
“I’m talking to my boyfriend,” Kenma clarifies, then overtakes one of his opponents and moves up to 2nd place.
“You have a boyfriend?” One of the voices asks. A French accent, this time. Kuroo winces a bit, because while it’s public knowledge that famous professional gamer slash youtuber slash CEO slash whatever-else-the-fuck was gay and taken, the reactions from gamers Kenma played could be hit or miss.
“Obviously, Charles, if you actually watched Kenma’s videos, you’d know this!” Norris replies, laughing.
Charles groans, “Can we move on from that, please.” The rest of the voices start laughing along, Kenma included. “How was I supposed to know!”
“He didn’t know I was a pro-gamer,” Kenma explains to him in Japanese, then switches back to English. “I’m shittalking you, Charles, just so you know,” he adds.
Charles curses in French. Even Kuroo laughs.
From what Kuroo can see, they’re down to 3 laps left, and Kenma’s nearly neck-and-neck with the current lap leader, an ALB in navy blue that’s been sitting comfortably on there for the last few minutes. When Kenma overtakes, he lets out a “Yes,” under his breath, then simply says “Ha,” into the microphone.
“ KENMA, ” The British voice from earlier groans out. “Not again. ”
“Alex. Do I have to remind you what I do for a living?” Kenma says.
“May I remind you of what we do for a living?” Norris says, finally crossing the finish line.
“I don’t think you’re very good at it, then.”
“ KENMA,” Alex groans out again.
“Anyway, good game. Thanks,” Kenma says. “Saturday?”
The voices call out in agreement, then Kenma quits the game and gets out of the simulator. He tiptoes to kiss Kuroo on the cheek, then takes his hand as they exit the room. “Dinner?”
Kuroo smiles at him. “Yeah.”
—
It’s Saturday, Kuroo doesn’t really have to do anything, and he finally gets to sleep in. Which is a relief, he’d been swamped with emails and meetings this week trying to figure out the logistics for the upcoming volleyball season.
Kenma’s in the gaming room a little earlier than he does in the day, even for a saturday. It’s only 10am, and he’s already been holed up for an hour and a half. Kuroo pops in. “You good?”
“Uhuh,” Kenma replies, clearly too focused on the game, biting the inside of his cheeks the way he did when he was concentrating a little harder than usual.
“Huh,” Kuroo says, when he peers at the screen to see Kenma at 12th. “You’re losing.”
A voice barks out a laugh. It’s Norris. “That the boyfriend, Kenma?”
“Shut up,” Kenma says, “The both of you.”
Kuroo takes Kenma’s gaming chair and rolls it over to sit next to the Racing Simulator. “I’ll just be here,” He yawns. “The wifi’s a lot faster, anyway.”
He reads some articles on his phone while also watching Kenma play, and slowly but surely throughout the hour he makes his way up the leaderboard, ultimately finishing at 2nd place.
“I’m still leading in the championships,” Kenma says, smug. When Kuroo rests his chin on his shoulder, he leans into the touch.
“Hey! Kenma’s boyfriend,” Norris says. Kuroo starts slightly at being addressed, “What’s his secret? Is he also secretly a professional racing driver?”
“That’d be like, his 500th job, I think,” Alex chimes in.
“My Kenma’s just talented like that,” Kuroo answers easily, like the sappy bastard he was. His English wasn’t as refined as Kenma’s, who could speak it and a couple of other languages as well, but he was fluent enough to make conversation. Fluent enough to trash talk on discord, definitely.
“I can see you’re just as humble as he is,” A new voice points out.
“We’re always this humble. What are you talking about,” Kenma says. “Hey, Kuro, want a turn?”
Kuroo considers this. On one hand, he was notoriously terrible at any kind of racing game that wasn’t mario kart. It just wasn’t as fun when you couldn’t sabotage your opponents in the most obnoxious way possible.
On the other, the simulator looked really cool , and Kuroo was honestly very curious to see how all those buttons worked. “Hell yeah,” he replies, then switches places with Kenma.
“So the Boyfriend’s name is Kuro!” The new voice calls out: Koo-roe . It was interesting. “Hullo, Kuro, I’m George.”
“Lando,” Norris says.
“Alex.”
A pause. “Charles — Sorry, I went to the bathroom.”
Kuroo wants to ask Kenma how he ended up playing with a bunch of random European dudes, but he also really wants to play already . “You guys can do a practice session,” Kenma says, then starts explaining the buttons and their functions.
“Not scared he’s gonna ruin your streak, Kenma?” Lando says.
“No,” Kenma replies. “I trust him.”
—
Kuroo goes out to lunch with Bokuto when he’s back in town for Golden Week. He actually spent the last two days with extended family in Sagamihara, and explains as much to Kuroo.
“It was my aunt’s birthday,” Bokuto tells him over milk tea and a burger. Kuroo distantly wondered if the MSBY nutritionist knew about this. “And onee-san just gave birth!”
“Oh yeah! I saw her post on facebook. Tell her congrats for me, man,” Kuroo says.
“Dude, the baby is so cute,” Bokuto says, already pulling up pictures on his phone. “Doesn’t he look like me?”
Kuroo nods, “He has your eyebrows.”
Bokuto’s eyes soften as he looks at the picture again. “Right?”
Kuroo opens his mouth, then closes it. Then says fuck it, and asks anyway. “How’s Akaashi?”
Bokuto blanches, “Anyway, so.”
Kuroo facepalms, “Bo.”
“Shh,” Bokuto says, waving a hand at Kuroo, “Shh, stop, look at the cute baby instead.”
Kuroo rolls his eyes and takes the phone from Bokuto and starts scrolling through the pictures. “Oh, and like, my aunt Satori’s kid, my cousin Yuki? Just came back from England.”
“He’s the one that’s also an athlete…?”
Bokuto points at a picture of him and a much shorter boy. “Yeah! That’s him.”
“What’s he play? Baseball?”
“Nah, he’s a race car driver.” Bokuto replies. Kuroo briefly wonders if Bokuto’s cousin does iRacing, too. “Oh yeah! I wanted to ask if you wanna come with me to Suzuka in October.”
“Suzuka?” Kuroo asks, sipping on his own milktea. “What’s in Suzuka?”
“Yuki gave me free tickets to the Suzuka race,” he explains. “The whole family’s gonna be there!”
Kuroo raises an eyebrow. “Not taking Akaashi?”
Bokuto swipes to a picture of his new nephew and points at it vigorously. “Look at the cute baby!”
—
Kenma’s doing paperwork in his office when Kuroo gets home.
“Do you wanna go to Suzuka?” Kuroo asks, peering through the door.
Kenma looks up at him, “Oh, for the Grand Prix?”
“Uhuh,” Kuro rounds the table to wrap his arms around the back of Kenma’s office chair, leaning down to press a kiss against his forehead. “Bokuto got a buncha free tickets, and is too much of a coward to bring Akaashi along.”
“Why am I not surprised,” Kenma says, leaning up to kiss Kuroo on the cheek in response. “I was planning to ask you if you wanted to go, too.”
“ You wanna watch a race? It’s like.. crowded. And loud.”
Kenma rolls his eyes at him goodnaturedly. “I know, I iRace. Constantly.”
“You know what I mean! It’s not the same thing,” Kuroo says, laughing.
Kenma shrugs. “I think it’d be cool to see it in real life. I’d get to meet the guys I race against, too.”
“Oh? They’re going, too?”
“Yeah,” Kenma’s eyes twinkle in amusement. “The guys whose scores I’ve been beating. They’re going, too.”
—
Kenma usually warned him before he started filming a video, especially if it was a livestream. He’s once again surprised when he walks into the game room and sees Kenma streaming Fall Guys on his main computer.
“Oops,” Kuroo says, walking into frame anyway. Kenma doesn’t seem to mind. “Hey, this isn’t your stream.”
“Yep,” Kenma replies, his little bean-man character jumping from one shrinking platform to another. “It’s Lando’s.”
“Oh, they’re youtubers too?”
Kenma snorts. He can’t hear the rest of the guys until Kenma unplugs his headphones in a swift motion. When he does, they’re laughing. “You could say that.”
The voice chat breaks out into a string of curses in varying languages as half of them are eliminated after the round, Kenma included. “The latest update totally nerfed me,” he says, looking annoyed. Kuroo rubs his back.
“Which one’s Lando?” Kuroo asks. There are 4 other people in the stream. Kenma points to one of the 3 white guys, this one wearing a cap on backwards.
He has Lando Norris in giant glowing letters next to him in frame. Kuroo is an idiot.
“Hey, Kenma’s boyfriend!” Lando greets. “I’m kicking his arse now, see.”
“I can see that,” Kuroo replies, at the same time Kenma tells Lando to shut up.
“Aw, you guys are cute,” Alex says.
“Focus on winning, Alex! Don’t let this round turn out like your last season,” One of the white guys says.
“Oh man,” Lando laughs out.
Alex gasps in mock offense. “At least you’re actually getting points now, George.”
“He got you there,” The guy Kuroo assumes must be Charles, says.
“Shut it, Leclerc, you fell off a platform.”
“You’ll meet them in Suzuka,” Kenma says. The last of the group finally get eliminated, and George comes out on top.
The chat erupts in even more shouting.
—
Racing wasn’t just a one-day-thing like Kuroo thought it was. Turns out, the entire thing took place over the span of 3 days. He’s very good at googling things, thank you.
“I thought the practices were tomorrow,” Kuroo says, following Kenma and Bokuto as they make their way past the bag check, Akaashi beside him. Bokuto finally got his shit together and invited Akaashi, after a lot of cajoling from Kuroo and sneaky intervention on Kenma’s part.
“They are!” Bokuto explained, “It’s media day, and we have paddock passes. You have a media pass!”
Kuroo did have a media pass. He’d taken a week of leave off for the trip, and when the JVA heard that he’d be going to watch the Suzuka GP with Bokuto, they’d hooked him up with a sports news channel and told him to film some videos about it.
This meant that they had a camera crew following around, and it was testament to how more-or-less used to his relative fame Kenma’s gotten that to the untrained eye, he looks unaffected by the public attention. The way their elbows brush as they walk says otherwise, though, and Kuroo’s always been happy to provide a grounding point of contact.
They’re in the middle of the paddock when several things happen at once.
A loud group of voices call out. “Oi, Kenma!”
At the same time, Bokuto looks the opposite way and starts waving wildly. “Yuki-chan!”
As the group approaches, Kuroo squints at their faces in vague recognition until it suddenly clicks. These were the guys Kenma usually raced with, or 3 of them, at least. One of them was missing.
“Where’s the other guy?” He asks Kenma, in Japanese, before turning to introduce himself to them.
“He’s … elsewhere,” Kenma says, slowly. “Anyway, this is Lando, Charles, and George.”
“Nice to finally meet you,” Kuroo says, shaking each of their hands.
Bokuto bounds over to them with his arm around a younger Japanese boy’s shoulders. “Hey, guys! This is my cousin Yuki!”
“This is Bokuto,” Kenma says to the group, gesturing at him. “He’s the pro-volleyball player I was talking about.”
“Oh, dude, cool!” Lando says, “You’re the olympian!”
Bokuto nods, and starts chattering away about the olympics to the three boys, who were happy enough to listen.
Kuroo and Kenma introduce themselves to Yuki, who’s really too polite and relaxed to be directly related to Bokuto. “You’re a driver, Yuki-san?” Kenma asks.
“Yes,” Yuki replies. “It’s my first season in Formula 1.”
“That’s so cool,” Kuroo says. “Good luck out there, man.”
“Thank you!” Yuki says, eyes shining. There’s a competitive spirit in there that reminds Kuroo of Bokuto at the peak of a volleyball match.
“—And you’re Yuki’s cousin?” Charles asks Bokuto, drawing their attention.
“He’s my mom’s sister’s kid,” Bokuto explains. “I guess it runs in the family.”
“Yuki’s been giving us a run for our money, I’m not gonna lie,” Lando says.
Yuki flushes at the compliment. “Thank you, Lando-san,” he says.
“No, really, Koutarou, you’re cousin’s really amazing. It’s great you’re gonna get to see him in action,” George says.
Run for their mo— “Wait, are you guys actual race car drivers too?” Kuroo asks. Kenma laughs, and Bokuto and Yuki follow. “You’re race car drivers?” Kuroo repeats to the rest of them, in English.
They all nod, clearly amused. “Did Kenma not tell you?”
“Nah. He kept kicking your asses anyway, so I completely ruled the possibility out.”
“Hey!” They laugh in surprise. “That’s a completely different thing.”
“Not really,” Kenma says, smirking.
“It is and you know it,” George says.
The cameraman taps Kuroo’s shoulder, and gesticulates between Bokuto and the rest of the group. Four professional race car drivers, a professional volleyball player, and a professional gamer slash CEO slash everything else.
“Oh," Kuroo says. "The JVA’s going to love this.”