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The small apartment that Kuroo shares with Bokuto is filled with people, dancing and chatting around with alcohol in their red plastic cups while music streams from Bokuto’s expensive speakers.
Kei doesn’t even know the excuse that the older boys had to throw a party, but here they are anyway.
Kei finishes his fifth —maybe sixth?— beer when the messy haired raven slumps on the couch beside him. He tries his best to hide the shudder that went through him when Kuroo casually rests his arm on his thigh.
He reminds himself that it doesn’t mean anything.
Kuroo has always been a little bit touchy and flirty with everyone since Kei met him back in high school at that stupid science fair. He isn’t special. He’s sure that almost half the people in this party has the same embarrassingly massive crush on the guy too.
He steals a glance at Kuroo and is shocked at the intense look on his face while he stares across the room. Kei follows his line of sight and deflates.
He wasn’t able to stop the self-deprecating laughter that bubbled out of him. Of fucking course.
Kuroo immediately turns to him, as if magnetized by the sound, and quirks an eyebrow in silent question.
Kei shakes his head once and rolls is eyes, trying to erase any evidence of hurt in his face even when he can feel his chest squeezing tightly around his heart.
“She’s in my class. I can introduce you if you’re that desperate.” He says, leaning forward a bit so Kuroo would hear him above the loud music.
Kuroo frowns a little, “What?”
“The girl with gray hair, Alisa, she’s in one of my classes. I can introduce you.”
“Wh—“
“Alisa!” Kei doesn’t even let Kuroo speak. He doesn’t want to hear it.
Doesn’t want to hear Kuroo’s excitement. Couldn’t stomach to hear him say ‘Thank you for being an awesome wingman Tsukki’. Wouldn’t even wait for him to ask, because Kei’s heart is already on the ground and hearing Kuroo say ‘Check her out, she’s cute’ would be like allowing him to step on it.
“Tsukki, I don’t—“ The older boy says urgently as he squeezes Kei’s thigh tightly. Kei has to bite down on his lips to stop a moan from escaping.
He wants to tell Kuroo to stop touching him, but Alisa had already crossed the room and is standing in front of them expectantly. Eyes lingering on Kuroo and his hand that’s still on Kei’s thigh, burning at the point of contact.
“Hey Alisa, this is my friend Kuroo.” He says quickly, like ripping a bandaid.
“You’re the vollyball captain, right? It’s so nice to meet you.” Alisa smiles sweetly, and Kuroo smiles back.
“I’ll just refill my cup,” Kei shakes his empty cup, “See you later?” He says to no one in particular, and forces a smiles on his face as he quickly escapes to the small kitchen, dislodging Kuroo’s hand from his thigh.
Kei missed it right away.
#
Tetsurou follows Tsukisima walk to the kitchen with his eyes, much like a cat keenly watching a laser point.
He’s dimly aware that the girl —what was her name again?— is talking to him, but he couldn’t hear her over the thundering of his heart.
Because Miya Osamu is walking towards the kitchen too, no doubt to make his move on the blonde like he had heard him say earlier.
It was the reason why he suddenly sat next to Tsukishima and placed his hand all over him like a fucking possessive boyfriend in the first place, even when the younger boy doesn’t know that Tetsurou had feelings for him.
And then what? Tsukishima just introduces him to one of his friends, as if it’s his life mission to make sure that Tetsurou is with someone else.
Tetsurou runs his hands over his face and pulls at his hair in frustration.
“Kuroo?” The girl says, tapping his shoulders lightly.
He suddenly remembers his manners. “Hey, sorry. I spaced out a little. Arisa, was it?”
The girl shakes her head, “Alisa.”
“Oh, nice to meet you. You’re classmates with Tsukki?”
Instead of answering though, Alisa tilts her head and narrows her eyes a bit, and Tetsurou has this weird feeling of being flipped open like a book.
“You like him, don’t you?”
Tetsurou laughs at that. “Yea, well at least everyone else notices.”
Aside from the person I like himself.
“No offense, but Tsukishima is a little dense.”
“No shit.”
Alisa laughs, voice ringing like bells. “Yea, it’s really bad. A lot of our classmates keep trying to make moves on him but nothing works. Absolutely nothing! He’ll look at them weirdly when they offer to walk him to his next class, or when they invite him for coffee, or even when they ask to study with him at the library. He just replies with these overly logical reasons like ‘It’s out of your way though?’ Or like, ‘I can’t study with other people.’ And everyone in our friend group just wanna grab him and shake him until he realizes that these people are trying to flirt with him.”
Tetsurou laughs, feeling sorry for all those poor hearts and souls that his Tsukki had trampled on.
And that’s how he ended up trading failed-flirting-attempts-with-Tsukki stories with Alisa. Tetsurou’s actually thankful that she isn’t like the other people that Tsukishima had tried to set him up with. At least now he doesn’t have to spend the entire night trying to escape someone in his own apartment.
#
Kei bites his lower lip until he can taste the metallic tang of blood as he watches Kuroo and Alisa across the room, barely hidden behind the kitchen door.
He always does this. Always introduces random people and sometimes acquaintances or friends to Kuroo at parties. But always, nothing comes out of it.
Kuroo would just awkwardly nod and laugh at whatever the other person would say, and then he’d excuse himself to go hide in his room. (Because Bokuto’s room is always occupied by him and Akaashi, doing unspeakable things to each other.)
Until now.
Tsukishima sees rather than hears them laugh, both of them throwing their head back at whatever the other is saying, and he wants to gauge his eyes out but he can’t stop looking. Painfully transfixed as Alisa places a delicate hand on Kuroo’s built shoulder.
“Ya should really stop doing that.” A deep voice shakes Kei out of his misery.
“What?” He asks the boy while trying to mentally place his face. One of the mischievous twins, a year higher than him.
Atsumu? Or maybe Osamu. He isn’t sure.
The boy leans forward and lightly presses the pad of his thumb on Kei’s lower lip, and he stumbles back, almost spilling the contents of his forgotten cup.
“Bitin’ that. ‘S too temptin’.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” He says, glaring at the other boy.
“Come ‘n, you’ve been bitin’ it almost the entire night. ‘S all red and swollen now.”
Kei furrows his brows, not really sure why Atsumu or Osamu is telling him this. But suddenly a body bumps to him from behind, causing him to lurch forward.
The other boy catches him easily, slotting his hand on Kei’s nape and letting the side of Kei’s face rest on his shoulder.
It isn’t really comfortable since Kei is taller than the other boy, and he doesn’t really know him.
But it’s nice, Kei realizes.
It’s nice to be held by someone. He’s been in love with Kuroo for so long that he hasn’t even allowed himself to think about being held by other people, but it does feel nice.
Or maybe it’s the alcohol. How many cups had he had again? Is this his sixth or seventh now?
“A bit crowded here tonight huh.” Kei feels the other boys’ chest vibrate as he speaks, “Wanna head somewhere with less people?”
Kei stands properly and looks back at the couch, where Kuroo and Alisa are now looking at his direction. He couldn’t explain the look on Kuroo’s face.
Kei plasters a forced smile on his face and nods, ‘Sure.”
Whatever.
It’s not like he’s doing anything wrong anyway, and Kuroo doesn’t even like him like that. And it’s exhausting to keep watching the man he loves having fun with one of his friends.
So he leads the boy away.
#
“Fuck.” Tetsurou says eloquently.
“Oh. That’s new.” Alisa says beside him as they watch Tsukishima pull Osamu towards the balcony.
Suddenly his apartment is too crowded and his hands are slightly shaking and he couldn’t get oxygen in his lungs.
“Are you gonna follow them?”
“I—“
“I think you should. Tsukishima was slightly swaying, he might be drunk.”
Tetsurou swallows around the lump in his throat. Yea, Tetsurou thinks, Tsukki must be drunk. He must be. He’s been going back and forth in the kitchen the entire night, and he’d never done anything like this before.
“Kuroo,” he almost jumps in his seat when Alisa slightly pushes him, “Follow them!”
“Yea, I’m going.”
The apartment he shares with Bokuto isn’t that big, but it felt like an impossible distance from the living room to the balcony.
The balcony is always off limits in their parties, all of their friends knows this. But nothing in his life has even been off limits for Tsukki. That balcony is their place. The younger even filled it with countless pots of plants that Tetsurou couldn’t even name.
For Tsukishima to bring someone else there...
Tetsurou pushes the sliding door open and tried to take in the scene in front of him. Tsukishima’s back is pressed on the wall, his beautful face hidden behind both his hands like a scared, cornered animal.
He’d never wanted to punch someone so bad.
#
Kei filled his lungs with the cold night air as soon as he steps on the balcony, instantly relaxing with all his plants surrounding him.
He loves this place, this little bubble of space that he made in Kuroo’s second home.
“You okay?” The boy says and Kei almost jumps in surprise, which is stupid considering that he’s the one who brought him here.
Why did he even do that? This is the worst place to take another boy with him. This is his and Kuroo’s space, everything here would just remind him more of Kuroo.
“I’m fine,” he spits, which is another stupid thing to do. He isn’t angry at this guy, so it’s not fair for Kei to throw all his frustrations at him.
He isn’t even angry with Kuroo.
He’s just angry with himself, for loving someone who doesn’t love him back, and for being too much of a coward to even confess his feelings.
“I’m fine.” he repeats, stepping back until his back hits the cold stone wall —the cold somehow sobering him— and burrows his face in his hands. Ashamed with how he let someone (basically a stranger) witness his emotional whiplash.
Kei hears the glass door slide open, and the next thing he knows is that Kuroo has the front of one of the twin’s shirt fisted, his face in a snarl.
“What the fuck did you do to Kei!?”
“Nothin’ man!”
It took a second before Kei got his body to move, pulling Kuroo by his waist.
“Kuroo, what the fuck!? Let him go!”
Kuroo quickly obliges, and then the raven is holding Kei’s face between his hands like a precious flower that he’s afraid to crush.
“Are you okay? Did he.. Did he—“ Kuroo closes his eyes tightly, as if finishing the sentence hurts him.
Their faces are inches away from each other and it’s getting hard for Kei to breathe, but god help him because he couldn’t pull away.
“No, nothing. He didn’t do anything.”
“Kei, I swear to—“
Something in Kei breaks a little, because Kuroo had never said his name like that.
“I’m fine, Tetsu.” He convinces, because it hurts him to see the man he loves like that. With fear and anger glazing his bright brown eyes.
But it’s like Kuroo couldn’t hear him. His eyes are roving all over the younger, so Kei digs his hands deeply where it rests on Kuroo’s waist, surely leaving half-moon indents from his nails.
It does the trick. Kuroo calms down enough to come back to himself and properly look at Kei.
“I’m okay.”
“I thought—“ Kuroo suddenly envelops him in a tight hug, inhaling deeply in the crook of his neck.
Behind Kuroo, he sees Alisa pull the very confused boy back to the apartment where the party is still on full swing, but before she closes the door of the balcony, she winks at Kei.
They stand there like that, locked in each others arms for god knows how long, and Kei tries his best not to melt. Because god, it felt nice to be held by some stranger, but nothing could ever compare to this.
Like... Like finding the perfect word to describe a certain thing or feeling; Like correctly answering a hard math problem on the first try; Like the first sip of coffee on a lazy morning; Like everything finally falling into its proper place.
But Kei doesn’t dare hope. Hoping would be too cruel, and he’s already been hurting for a long time.
“Kuroo...” he breaks the moment, lightly pushing the raven away. (Even that hurt too.)
“Sorry.” Kuroo says sheepishly, slowly moving away from Kei. He runs his thumb softly on the blonde’s jaw once, and then brings both of his hands down, taking Kei’s hands in his.
“I can’t do this anymore Kei.”
Kei’s heartbeat picks up again because he isn’t sure where this conversation is going, and Kuroo said his name like that again.
“Do what?”
Kuroo takes a deep breath, like he’s stealing himself for something. “This. I— I can’t keep on pretending like I don’t have feelings for you. Like it doesn’t scare me shitless whenever I hear or see other people try to make a move on you, unsure whether you’d agree to them or not. I like you Kei, so much, and I don’t know what else I can do to show you that but... but I get it okay?” He swallows, then looks Kei in the eyes. “I get it now, so can you just... just stop?”
All Kei can do is blink rapidly as his mind tries to follow what Kuroo is saying. It feels like everything is spinning and the only thing that’s keeping him from falling is Kuroo’s hands in his.
He opens his mouth and closes it multiple times trying to form words, but all he manages to say is, “Stop what?”
“Stop setting me up with your friends. I get it, you don’t like me back. But just— at least don’t keep on shoving it on my face every time by pushing me to other people.”
There are no words. No words at all to explain how baffled Kei is by Kuroo’s confession. He couldn’t believe any of it.
“Is that true? You like me?” Kei asks, almost a whisper.
Kuroo smiles at him, that condescending smile that Kei hates to love so much, “When have I ever lied to you moonshine?”
There really are no words. So Kei just does the only thing he can think of doing. The thing that he’d wanted to do for so long.
He kisses him.
Just a chaste and mostly reluctant touch of lips —because Kei is still so scared that none of this is actually true— but Kuroo kisses back, almost instantly.
Kuroo kisses him slowly and sweetly, one of his hands cradling the side of Kei’s face, tilting it so they can slot their lips better and deepen the kiss.
And it is everything at once; a confession, an assurance, a promise, and a devotion.
When they break for air, Kei curses softly. “So you’re telling me,” he says against Kuroo’s lips (because now that he’s allowed to do that, he doesn’t think he’s ever going to stop), “that I’ve been hooking you up with other people when you’ve liked me all this time?”
Kuroo laughs, “No one asked you to be my wingman, Tsukki.”
The blonde groans, “But— But! You keep on looking at other boys and girls! You never look at me!”
“I always look at you moonshine.”
“NO! Earlier you were staring at Alisa so much so I thought—“
“Alisa? No! I was staring daggers at Osamu because I knew he wanted to make a move on you.”
“Oh... So he was that twin.”
Kuroo sputters, “You..!? You didn’t even know which twin you dragged here?”
Kei pouts, “I didn’t get to ask. You were having so much fun with Alisa and I was busy feeling miserable so I just... I don’t know, I didn’t think.”
Kuroo gently pushes Kei’s blonde locks behind his ear, “Baby, we were talking about all the hearts you’ve been breaking, including mine.”
“Sorry.” Kei frowns guiltily, and Kuroo just hugs him tighter.
“It’s fine now, but, kiss me better?”
So Kei kisses the shit eating grin right out of his face.
#
The door to Bokuto’s room opens suddenly and Kenma is thankful that at least the couple is being covered by the sheets.
“Kenma!?” Bokuto bristles while Akaashi struggles to pull the blanket higher to cover himself.
“It’s happening.” Kenma says simply.
“FUCKING FINALLY!”