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He was always thin. Kuroo used to make fun of him for it. Twiggy arms, spindly legs, a waist that Kuroo could nearly wrap his hands around if he really tried and Tsukishima sucked in the little bit of belly he had. He never meant anything by it. Just a little teasing between then acquaintances, now boyfriends. He would’ve helped Tsukishima gain muscle if he asked. He would’ve done a lot of things differently if he had been asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about quitting the team?” Kuroo prodded, staring at the prone form of Tsukishima hunched over on his desk in his bedroom. It was a Thursday night, their normal night for video chats while Tsukishima finished up his second year of high school and Kuroo tried to survive his first of college. Tsukishima mumbles something that doesn’t quite catch the microphone, blocked as he is by the arms covering his face. “Tsuki, you have to pick your face up.”
When he finally does (it takes a couple of minutes of Kuroo pestering him to sit up straight and talk like an adult), Kuroo sees just how tired his boyfriend really looks. His normally honey colored eyes look like they’ve decided to roll around in some itchy grass, as bloodshot as they are, and they’re ringed with dark, bruise-like bags. The cheeks that normally looked so full and pink that Kuroo just has to pinch them when he sees Tsuki look hollow and gray, though he wasn’t sure if that was because Tsukishima was sitting in the dark, face illuminated only by the white light of his computer screen.
“Woah, are you okay, babe? You look sick.”
Tsukishima rolled his eyes, before sighing and propping his face up with one hand on the desk. “I am sick.”
“Well, you should go to bed then. We can postpone this until later, so you can get some rest, okay?”
Tsukishima began to nod before pausing and closing his eyes.
“Tsuki.”
“Sorry I’m just a little dizzy.” Slowly, Tsukishima opened his eyes back up, rubbing at his temples before speaking again. “I probably should go to bed.”
“Yeah, like don’t even worry about this.” Kuroo leaned forward a bit in his chair, flooding Tsukishima’s screen with nothing but his face. “Your health is so much more important.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Kuroo leaned back again, frowning at how reserved and non-bratty Tsukishima was acting tonight. “Now get on to bed. Goodnight, Tsuki-”
“Kuroo.”
“Huh? What’s up?”
“Can you come over this weekend?”
Kuroo let out a sigh and rubbed at the back of his neck as he looked down at the schedule he had taped on the desk next to him. “Tsuki, I don’t know, I wasn’t really planning-”
“Please.”
He looked up as Tsukishima interrupted him. Those bloodshot eyes staring at him, pleading for Kuroo to find a positive answer in his vocabulary. He’d say Tsukishima almost looked desperate, but no, desperation wasn’t in Tsukishima’s repertoire of emotions. “I know you’re sick, but can’t you come here instead?”
“My mom won’t let me out of the house.” Tsukishima ran a hand through his hair before clenching it into a fist and tapping it on the table in front of him. “Please. I really need to see you.”
“Yeah, okay, just let me see…” Kuroo looked down at his schedule again for the coming weekend. “If I can get out of it early, I can be over tomorrow night after we have short practice. And I’ll skip Saturday’s, too.”
Tsukishima rubbed his hands up and down his arms, as if he was trying to warm himself up. He mumbled a quiet “Thank you” as he fiddled with the ends of his long sleeves.
“Hey, you know all you have to do is ask for something and I’ll make it work. Everyone already says I’m whipped.” Kuroo leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand and suppressing a desire to get up and leave for Miyagi right now while Tsukishima was still looking all sad and vulnerable like that. But he knew he couldn’t skip two practices in a row without getting his ass handed to him by the seniors. “Now get some sleep, babe. I love you.”
Tsukishima smiled, thin lips curling upwards in a way that made it seem like Tsukishima was trying to hold back like always. “I love you, too.”
Kuroo blew a kiss to the camera, finally letting a grimace slip onto his face once Tsukishima’s window went black. Something was bothering his little butt of a boyfriend. Something that was more than any of the annoyances Tsukishima claimed to suffer on a daily basis and made him look like he just stepped out of a coffin instead of a bed. Something…something that even made his normally standoffish partner actually ask for Kuroo to come see him in an uncharacteristic display of weakness.
The possibilities made his stomach turn. Maybe his parents made him quit his volleyball team for some reason. Maybe he got into a big fight with his little freckled friend. Maybe it was something Kuroo couldn’t consciously think of. All he knew that is was something that made his Tsuki turn into a hollow, desperate version of himself, and he didn’t like it.
---
Kuroo spent the rest of his Thursday night getting things in order for his impromptu weekend trip. Clothes packed in a bag that could easily be taken to campus with him for class and practice. A quick text to the captain and coach to say he had a family obligation unexpectedly pop up and that he’d have to bail for one day. A shout out through his roommate’s closed door about where he’d actually be that weekend, and finally, everything was in order.
Kuroo peeled out of practice the moment it was over, rushing to the train station to make one of the last boardings for the trip up to Miyagi. He texted Tsukishima throughout his entire ride there, until the texts finally stopped coming about 45 minutes to the end. Apparently Tsuki still wasn’t feeling too hot, and had spent most of his day sleeping. Yamaguchi had been over earlier after his own practice to check on him, much to Kuroo’s relief. Even if Tsukishima was going through something big, at least he still has his little buddy to take care of him.
Kuroo knocked on the front door of the Tsukishima household 10 minutes before 9 o’clock. He smiled apologetically as Tsukishima’s petite mother ushered him inside out of the cold. She informed him that Tsuki had taken a pretty heavy dose of medicine to help him sleep about an hour and a half ago, and probably wouldn’t wake up again until late morning. When he asked what exactly Tsukishima was sick with, his mother gave him a vague, uninformative answer before instructing him to stay in Tsuki’s older brother’s room for the night, and that he was free to help himself to any food or drink in the kitchen, as long as he did not try to disturb the highschooler’s rest. After an exaggerated pledge and promise to keep the door closed, Kuroo was left to his own devices in the elder Tsukishima’s room.
He decided it would be better to just go ahead and try to sleep, rather than stay up and worry over a sleeping Tsuki. As he laid back in bed, staring up at the ceiling, Kuroo remembered how tired Tsukishima’s mother looked when she answered the door. Eyes red, typically perfectly coifed blonde hair a frizzy mess. She was even short with him, which is so much unlike her that even her own tiredness terrified Kuroo.
He remembered when he first met her. It had been about a month and a half after Kuroo had started dating her son. She had latched on to him immediately, praising and thanking him for everything he had done for Tsukishima, making sure that he knew he was a bright spot in Kei’s life and that she could never repay him for making it seem like her son was truly happy for the first time in years. Kuroo knew he had made the right choice in dating Tsuki after that.
But that was not even close to the woman he saw tonight. She was haggard and snappy and exhausted. He was hungry and he needed a shower, but Kuroo was almost afraid to step out of the bedroom in a worry that he may be the last thing that made her snap and break down.
Kuroo fell to sleep with his clothes on, barely making an effort to remove his shoes or pull back the covers.
The only thing he could think was the faster he slept, the faster it would be before he could see his boyfriend awake.
And hopefully well.
---
The night passed in a blur. In a half-awake, half-asleep, twice as long as it should have blur. Kuroo only snapped out of his weird, sleep limbo when he heard the door across from his open and close, hinting to the fact that Tsukishima might finally be awake. He was in the process of rolling out of bed when he heard a weak knock at his door.
After receiving permission to enter, Tsukishima opened the door. Quickly clicking it shut behind him, he shuffled over to Kuroo on the bed. Looking expectant, Tsukishima stood beside the bed until Kuroo opened up the covers so that Tsukishima could slide in beside him.
Tsukishima’s hands slid around Kuroo’s back as he settled in, clammy fingers sending a chill across Kuroo’s skin. “Hey, you’re really cold, Tsuki.”
“And you’re really warm.” Tsukishima’s voice was scratchy and muffled as he had already found a way to make his home underneath Kuroo’s chin, fully intent on absorbing all the warmth he could.
“Awe, warm but not hot, Tsuki?” Kuroo laughed as Tsukishima set his nails into the skin at the back of his neck, silently scolding him for the early morning jab. “Are you still sick?”
Tsukishima shifted so that his voice would come out clearer, instead of continuing to press his face into the warmth of Kuroo’s neck. “Yeah, but it’s not contagious.”
“Ah, okay.” Kuroo let his hands wander up and down Tsukishima’s back, feeling it rise and fall in unsteady patterns. “So…what is it?”
Tsukishima made a disgruntled noise to indicate that he didn’t know what Kuroo was asking him.
“Like, how are you sick? You never really said and your mom wouldn’t say last night either.”
“Hmmm.” Tsukishima shifted closer, pulling himself tighter to Kuroo’s front without giving an answer.
“Tsuki-”
“I want to sleep a little bit more.”
“Okay, go on. We’ll talk about it when you wake up.” But Tsukishima was already gone. Kuroo gave him a tight little squeeze, shifting their combined weight slightly so he could more comfortably lay back on his pillow, hopefully to get a few more hours himself. Sleep never came for him, and he laid in darkness for another hour and a half as Tsukishima softly snored under his chin.
Tsukishima came back to earth quickly, sitting up straight in bed with no warning. Pulling his legs up to his chest, he sat with his head between his knees, letting out a shaky moan that indicated he was in pain.
Kuroo shot up beside him, rubbing a hand across his back, trying to soother away the pain. “Tsuki, what’s wrong?”
“Get my mom.”
Kuroo nodded, scrambling down the end of the bed in order to go search for his boyfriend’s mother. She was cooking breakfast in the kitchen, but quickly dropped everything when she saw the frazzled look on Kuroo’s face, nearly sprinting back to where Tsukishima was curled up into a ball with a glass of water and a couple bottles of pills. Kuroo watched from the doorway as she coaxed her son to take them, overhearing whispers and pleads for Tsukishima to allow her to take him to the hospital. She was close to tears by the time Tsukishima assured her he was okay again, looking back over her shoulder as she left Kuroo to watch over him.
Kuroo swallowed thickly, pressing down the negative feelings that were trying to come up through his throat. Leaving the door open behind him in case he needed to shout for the boy’s mother again, Kuroo made his way over to the bed where Tsukishima still sat. He wondered if he should bring a chair over in fear of jostling Tsukishima too much, but he sat back down with his back pressed against the wall after Tsukishima gestured that he should.
Tsukishima was rubbing his arms, pausing at all of his joints to massage them. He took a deep breath before looking back up at Kuroo, tired eyes still bloodshot. “So…you saw that.”
“Yeah, I saw that.” Kuroo reached forward to place a hand on Tsukishima’s leg, but stopped when the boy jerked away from his touch. “Tsuki, what’s going on?”
“Sorry, I just… I hurt. Everywhere.” Tsukishima pulled his legs back up, hugging them to himself as he propped his chin on his knees.
“Does it have to do with the way you’re sick?”
Tsukishima closed his eyes, and let out a deep breath through his nose. “Yeah.”
“And why you quit the volleyball team?”
“Yeah.”
Kuroo felt an uneasy sense of panic settling in his stomach. Sure Tsuki was sick, but he was overreacting, right? What kind of sickness would make someone quit their team? Maybe it was just the flu; that always made Kuroo get really achey. Or growing pains. Or something mild and Tsuki was looking for a real excuse to quit.
“Isn’t that a little bit of an overreaction though, Tsuki? I mean, you’ll get better and you’ll be able to play again, right?”
“Kuroo.” Tsukishima must have heard the slight panic in Kuroo’s voice, because his own tone suddenly turned sharp and pointed. Though when he spoke again, his voice had returned to cracked and tired. “I’ve always been sick. Just not bad enough for anyone but my family to know about.”
“Tsuki, what are you talking about? You’ve been fine as long as I’ve know you.”
“Only on the outside. I’ve had it under control for a while. Remission… or whatever you call it. But I noticed it was coming back a few weeks ago. My doctor recommended I quit, and my mom and dad made me.”
“Tsuki… I don’t…” Remission. Kuroo had only heard that term when some adult he knew was coming back from some really bad disease. You didn’t use it to describe something that Kuroo was still praying Tsukishima had.
“Just…look.” Tsukishima scooted closer to him, so that he could see whatever it was Tsuki wanted him to see despite the lack of lights in the room. Tsukishima rolled back his sleeves, exposing the skin of his forearms. He could feel Tsukishima shaking beside him as he turned over his arms, displaying the prominent black and purple bruises running down the length of his forearms, all the way from his wrists, past the inside of his elbow. Kuroo blinked a few times, thinking the intensity of the colors may just be an illusion of unsteady eyes, but sure enough Tsukishima’s normally fair skin was painted with ugly splotches of color.
“Shit, Tsuki, what happened?” Kuroo wanted to reach out and touch him, to cover up the bruises with his hands, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t going to risk hurting him worse.
“Blocking.” Tsukishima rolled his sleeves back down to remove the marks from Kuroo’s gaze. “I guess I didn’t realize how bad it got until I woke up one morning black and blue. Before that, I was just trying to ignore the pain. Like it was just me imagining things. But I guess not.”
“Tsuki…”
“I tried to hide it, but after I saw the bruises, I knew I couldn’t anymore.” Tsukishima flopped to the side, pressing himself to Kuroo’s side so that his boyfriend could no longer see his face. “I’ve been to my doctor five times in two weeks…”
Tsukishima’s voice trails off, his next sentence is left hanging in the air. Kuroo almost knows what he means, but he doesn’t want to believe it without hearing it come from Tsukishima’s own mouth.
“What is it? Exactly?”
“A type of cancer. One that can either be easily controlled or fuck up your entire life.” Tsukishima buried his face into Kuroo’s shoulder, eyes stinging as he bit back a distressed noise. “They thought I was the latter, because it stayed hidden for so long. It would’ve been…six years I think….six years yesterday since my last treatment that was supposed to seal it away.”
“Tsuki…why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t a big deal before now.” Tsukishima coughed, and Kuroo felt his whole body rattle at the force of it. “It was mild. Barely threatening because they caught it early. I didn’t need anyone to worry about something that wasn’t an issue.”
“Tsuki, not an issue? I think it’s kind of a big-”
“It wasn’t a big issue. I didn’t expect it to come back.” Tsukishima sighed, his entire body deflating as he wrapped a hand in the front of Kuroo’s shirt. “I was getting sick a lot, and my doctor says I can’t go to school if I can’t get it back under control. I hurt everywhere, I bruise when I bump into something the wrong way. I cough all the time, and I can’t sleep right.”
Kuroo stayed silent when Tsukishima finished. His tongue felt thick and heavy, and his eyes were burning with frustrated tears he refused to let fall.
“I actually asked you to come over so I could break up with you.” Tsukishima must have felt Kuroo tense, because he let out a half-hearted chuckle. “But I can’t do it. You can do it if you want. But I can’t. I’m just as selfish as you always say I am.”
“Tsuki.”
“Tetsu.”
Kuroo sighed and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up on end. “I’m not going to break up with you.”
“I’m not going to get better.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone.”
“I’m going to have to deal with this the rest of my life.”
“Tsuki.”
“I’m probably going to die.”
“Kei. I know you’re trying to piss me off right now so I’ll break up with you.” Kuroo pulled Tsukishima onto his lap so that they could sit face to face. He tried to ignore how light and willowy he felt below his hands. How thin and fragile he had gotten in the time it had been since they had last seen each other. “I’m not going to do that. I want to be here. For you and with you. Don’t worry about it.”
Tsukishima sniffed and pressed his face back into Kuroo’s shoulder. “I wish you could stay here.”
“Me too.” Kuroo closed his eyes, trying to think of what could be done to make it so that he could be here more often. So that he didn’t have to be away from Tsuki when he needed him most. It was too late in the semester to drop classes without facing penalty. The only thing he could think of was quitting his own volleyball team at his university. “But you know I’ll drop everything if you ask, right?”
“I know.” Kuroo felt Tsukishima’s smile pressing into his shoulder as the boy held onto him for dear life. Kuroo couldn’t help smile a little bit too as he pressed a kiss to the top of his blonde head.
It was okay. He was going to be okay. He had to be okay because how could he not when he still felt so real and solid and whole?
The rest of the weekend passed. It took a while for Tsukishima to get moving that Saturday morning, but once he finally did, he was almost back to normal. He was still a bratty little pest that liked to elbow Kuroo in the ribs while they played video games. Still a never ending well of smart remarks and witty retorts that missed the mark and had Kuroo laughing instead of hurting his esteem. Still Tsuki, still his Kei that rested his head on Kuroo’s shoulder while watching documentaries and old sci-fi movies.
Kuroo tried to ignore the hollow look in his eyes when he laughed, and the shallowness of his cheeks and the lack of color in his face. Any other day he would have counted off Tsukishima’s appearance to fatigue after a long week of practice and school, but he knew that really wasn’t the case. He tried to ignore the sad little smile Yamaguchi gave him when he came over to visit that night. (Kuroo always liked Yamaguchi. It always made him feel better that Kei had someone who loved him around all the time. He was a good best friend for Kei.) They all three spent the night playing video games and watching movies until Kei’s mother came in and said that he needed to get some sleep. Yamaguchi left, and Kuroo curled up next to a drugged up Tsukishima who was slowly fading out of consciousness thanks to the sleeping pills his mother made him take.
He brushed the back of his hand down Tsukishima’s cheek as the boy fell into an unsteady sleep. His face was cold, even though the heater was cranked up to the point that Kuroo himself was sweating. He only had one more day with him, and not even a full one at that, before he had to go back to his apartment too many hours away. Tomorrow would be the last time Kuroo would see him awake before Kei was set to start his first round of treatments in an attempt to shut the disease down again before it went too far.
Kei said that they were going to start on Monday full force, no bars held. He said his doctors think that he’s still strong enough for that, but that he will probably be really sick for the rest of the week. That his immune system will be weaker than it already is, and he’ll be even more confined to the box of his room than he was before.
Kuroo promised he’d come see him the next weekend no matter what when he left Sunday evening, just as the streetlights kicked on and the sun put out its last rays of gold.
He kissed him goodbye, Kei’s lips cold, thin, and papery.
---
Kuroo skipped practice Friday night, leaving campus straight away once classes were over. He had tried to talk to Kei every day, though some days were worse than others. Monday was the easiest, as the treatment hadn’t quite set in yet to make him nauseous. Tuesday was the worst. Kuroo didn’t even get the opportunity to talk to him that day, only his mother who informed him that Kei had lived in the bathroom since the early hours of the morning. Wednesday and Thursday were better, though still bad enough that Kei could only stay on the line long enough to hear Kuroo say ‘I love you’. Friday morning came with a list of foods Kuroo shouldn’t bring around from Kei’s phone, and a message from his mother to wear a mask from the moment he entered their home. He covered his mouth and nose with one before knocking on the door that Friday night.
Surprisingly, Kei was the one who answered the door. He frowned at the mask covering Kuroo’s face before pulling him inside, thin fingers like ice as they wrapped around Kuroo’s wrist. Once the door closed, Kei immediately wrapped Kuroo up in his arms as if he was trying to find a way to sink into Kuroo’s body and disappear.
“Man, it feels like I could toss you over one shoulder and take you away if I wanted.” Kuroo patted the top of Tsukishima’s head, fingers meeting the wool of a gray beanie instead of the soft waves of Tsuki’s hair. “Nice hat.”
Tsukishima grimaced, pulling away and trying to take Kuroo’s bag from his shoulder. “My ears were cold.”
“Well than we just have to warm you up, don’t we?” Kuroo pulled his bag away from Kei’s hands, opening it up to pull out a tin of tea leaves. “Your mom said tea wasn’t making you sick, so I got some from that café near my place that you liked. Come on, I brought movies too.”
Kuroo set him down in front of the TV, leaving him to set up the first of the movies before going to the kitchen to heat up some water. Kuroo assumed his parents were both still at work, the time barely ticking past five o’clock. Kei had already fallen asleep on the couch by the time his mother first arrived home at 6:30, donned with a mask similar to Kuroo’s own in an attempt to keep all illnesses away from Kei.
The first round of treatment was hard. It had made him weak, sick, and dizzy, and gave him a near constant migraine that prevented him from opening his laptop or playing games. On Saturday, they simply laid in bed for most of the day, hands held together over Kei’s stomach. When he got tired of silence, Kei asked him to read something, anything, to take his mind off of the aching he felt all over his body. He laid there, silent, eyes closed, as Kuroo read to him from the book he would have been reading had he still been allowed to go to school.
“They have a game today.” Kei spoke up as Kuroo paused at the end of a chapter. “Karasuno, I mean.”
“Oh yeah? How are you guys doing this year?”
“Good. They almost made the interhigh this time around.” Kei went quiet for a second, and Kuroo thought he was going to drift off into silence again. “Yamaguchi said he and Narita-san were going to try out my spot this weekend. To see who should be starter. They didn’t get any first year middle blockers this time.”
“Oh?” Kuroo didn’t really know what to say. Kei hadn’t really said much last weekend about having to quit the team, other than he did.
“I hope Yamaguchi gets it.” Kei closed his eyes and let out a big sigh before pulling his blanket up closer under his chin. “He deserves it more.”
Kuroo nodded to himself as he puts a fold in the book to mark their spot. “Yeah, he does.”
“You should help him. He probably won’t ask, but you should.”
“I’ll ask if he wants help, Tsuki.”
“Thanks.” Kei stretched his arms up above his head before settling back down with his head on Kuroo’s shoulder. “Keep reading.”
---
Kuroo fell asleep before Tsukishima that night. He was lulled to sleep by the soft touches Kei left as he dragged his hands up and down Kuroo’s arms and pressed butterfly soft touches around his stomach and chest. Kuroo knew Kei wasn’t listening to his words anymore as he read through the boring school assigned book, but he kept reading because Kei never asked him to stop. He woke up sometime in the early morning with the book magically gone, and a weight across his hips.
Kei slipped his mask off from behind his ears and tossed it to the side, close enough for Kuroo to reach if he wanted to, but he was still in that early-morning haze. Still too confused to do much more than lay back as Kei leaned over, pressing kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. Kuroo could tell he had already been up long enough to brush his teeth, because the tongue licking at his mouth tasted like mint instead of medicine. Kei reached down, sliding Kuroo’s shirt up past his chest, chilly fingers warming slightly as the slid across Kuroo’s skin.
Kuroo reached up and wrapped his fingers in Kei’s soft short hair, glad to feel that Kei had ditched the ugly gray beanie already. He smiled against his boyfriend’s mouth as the younger male let out a soft sigh as Kuroo massaged his scalp.
“Tsuki, your hair is getting pretty long,” Kuroo whispered as he continued stroking the blonde waves on the back of his head.
“What are you talking about, idiot.” Kei sits up, pulling Kuroo with him as he removes Kuroo’s hand from the back of his head. He frowned at something Kuroo couldn’t see.
Pulling his hand away, Kuroo looks at the short, golden curls sticking to his palms and circling around his fingers. He shook them off, wiping his hands on the sheets as Kei rolled off of him and grabbed his beanie from the floor.
“Kei, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Kuroo flopped over, pressing his head into Kei’s lap as the other boy pulled his hat down around his ears.
“It’s not your fault. I didn’t think that would happen so fast, though. Well, all the websites say one to three weeks, so I guess it’s not a big deal.” Kei finished tucking his head inside the hat, only leaving a few wisps of blonde poking out around his ears and neck. “You should probably put your mask back on. I think I can hear my mom moving around.”
Kuroo complied, pulling down his shirt before wrapping the strings back around his ears. Kei watched him as he did so, eyes squinched up without his glasses on.
“Tetsurou.” Kuroo looked up when he finished adjusting the second ear strap, making sure it was secure. “Don’t do something stupid.”
“Stupid? Like what?”
“Like, don’t try to shave your head to make me feel better. That’s stupid. Seeing a bunch of bald people around me, trying to comfort me with solidarity, will only remind me more that I’m sick.”
“Yeah, okay. I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t want you to.” Kei reached over, brushing his fingers against the hair that fell over Kuroo’s eye. “I like your hair like that.”
Kuroo smiled, even though his mouth was covered by the mask. “Well I’ll love you whether you have hair or not.”
Tsukishima covered his face as a healthy flush pooled on his cheeks. “Shut up, Tetsu.”
---
Time moves faster than you think sometimes. Especially when you can only see the one person you want to once a week. Time drags, Monday through Friday, but then once the day finally gets there, it seems like nothing has changed and its really only been a few hours, right?
But then…then you realize how much is different.
Week by week.
Changes happening under your very nose that you only notice because you had been gone for a few days…though you’d probably notice if you had been there, too.
Kuroo quit his team the second week after Kei’s treatment began. But that wasn’t such a big deal. They had a three strike policy, and he was already on probation. If he got kicked off, he won’t be able to rejoin once everything settles down. But if he quit, he might be able to come back later. If he wanted. He didn’t really think that he would want to, though.
But that was the most minor thing.
Every weekend, Kuroo would come back. Lay in bed with him. Read him a book. Tell him about what he had learned that week. Try to ignore the changes to the one he loved.
Kei really did look different every time he came over, to the point he might’ve been recognizable if it wasn’t for the shape of his eyes and the slope of his nose and the curve of his fingers around Kuroo’s hand.
His hair was gone the next weekend he came over. Kuroo came supplied with an array of beanies for him when Kei hinted to the fact that he was distressed when his mother took the gray one away to wash it. Kei teased him when he noticed they were all red or black, saying that he didn’t bother to even go buy him new ones, raiding his own closet instead. Kuroo rolled his eyes and poked him in the ribs and gave him a black, white, and gold one.
“From Boku.”
He was also losing weight, his joints and hips and bones poking out and protruding. Kuroo could see the knobby bones of his spine poking through the material of his shirt when he would hunch over. Kuroo was afraid to touch him. Kei said that most of his disease was in his bones, and every once in a while, he’d bump his hip on the counter and fall to the ground, sharp shocks of pain surging through his body. If every bone in his body was hurting, and he was left with nothing but bones, where could you touch him?
The worst, if you could pick a worst thing in all of this, was his eyes. They seemed to recover at least partially from the red of being bloodshot, but now they seemed to sink back into his face as the dark rings of exhaustion never seemed to go away. Sallow skin that healed slowly, bruises never really fading away from completely. The big ones on his arms still looked green and yellow, despite the weeks and months they had been present.
The bruises were kind of like Kei himself. They sort of got better, but not really. Kei stopped getting nauseous every time he went in for treatment, but he still got worse.
It was a Wednesday night, close to the end of the semester when he got a call from Kei’s mother.
He had been taken to the ER. Dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, and a blinding migraine. He was okay now. Sleeping. He would be able to go home the next day if his counts were back into a safe range. His mother said to wait until Saturday to come down, but if he had to, Kei would probably want to see him the next day.
Kuroo hopped on the first train the next morning.
---
The end of the weekend came fast. Kei seemed fine. Better than he had been for months. His face was fuller, cheeks redder, eyes brighter. It almost made Kuroo forget that Kei had scared him half to death just a few days prior.
But Kei didn’t… couldn’t forget.
“It’s because they’re pumping me full of steroids, Tetsurou.” Kei pulled down his sleeves, fingers puffy from retaining extra water. “They’re hoping that I’ll gain weight. Not like it matters at this point.”
He seemed fine, but he never smiled. How could you when the inevitable was hanging over your head? Kuroo had nearly cried for the first time during this whole ordeal when they had told him that Kei wasn’t getting better. That the treatments and the medicine wasn’t helping anything. It was just making him miserable and puke his guts out every time he smelled vegetables cooking. The disease was spreading, and even the most aggressive form of treatments couldn’t stop it and that all other options had proven ineffective. That there was no point in even continuing to try now, unless his parents wanted him to remain miserable for the rest of his time.
Kuroo covered his ears when his mother tried to tell him the exact timespan he was given.
The fact that he was given a timespan at all was more than he needed to know.
He wanted to be selfish. He wanted to take Kei away and hoard him all for himself. His time was so precious and valuable that he felt like he needed all to himself. But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t keep him away from his family, his parents and his brother. He couldn’t keep him away from his friends. He couldn’t keep him to himself and isolate him from the people who held so much more weight and time in his life than Kuroo did.
Kei also yelled at him when he hinted that he might skip the last few weeks of the semester in order to stay in Miyagi full time.
“Tetsurou, we both knew I was going to ruin your life one way or another. Don’t let it be over something stupid like this, you need to go to class.”
Kuroo tried to protest and say that he could find a way to manage passing the semester and still stay, but Kei refused.
“I’ll never forgive you if you let yourself fail because you were wasting time here with me. I sleep most of the time anyway. You need to prepare yourself for your future.”
Kuroo shook his head at that and pressed Kei’s thin cheeks between his hands. “Our future.”
Kei simply gave him a soft smile and kissed the back of Kuroo’s hand.
---
Two weeks after they discontinued Kei’s treatment, Kuroo had a dream. It was foggy, even though he was standing indoors. He recognized the room as the living room of his old house; the one he had lived in with his father throughout high school, only the wall where the TV case used to be was covered in a mirror from floor to ceiling. The mirror was divided into squares, with each square showing the reflection of a face of someone he knew. Someone he cared about. Loved.
Kei was there. Kenma was too. His dad. Guys from both his high school and college volleyball team. Even Tsukishima’s family and Yamaguchi. Though they were farther from the center of the wall than the others.
When he walked closer, he saw some panes of glass missing. Some were cracked. Some lay shattered on the floor and crunched beneath his sneakers. The one that reflected his own face was missing a corner in the upper left. It was the corner that would have been pointing up towards an empty hole. When he looked down towards his feet, he saw the broken remnants of a panel reflecting his mother’s face. He supposed that the empty holes were people who had left his life. Or in his mother’s case, passed on.
He looked around his immediate reflection at all the people who were closest to him. Opposite his mother’s empty spot was his dad. Kenma’s was to his immediate left, and below that Bokuto and Yaku, some of the friends who still stuck close to him despite his reclusive nature over the course of Kei’s sickness.
And of course, to the right of his reflection was Kei. Despite the cracked glass that Kuroo guessed was a hint to how sick he really was, Kei still looked whole in his reflection. Golden eyes, casual smirk, blonde hair curling over his ears. He looked so real, so perfect and full that Kuroo wanted to reach out and grab him from the glass, and he almost believed he could. But when his fingers made contact with the mirror, it cracked with a sickening crunch, the fractures spreading in from the edges, crisscrossing across Kei’s face, until the pane could do nothing else but fall piece by piece onto the ground.
Kuroo tried to stop it; first by pressing his hands to the square in an attempt to get the pieces to stay, then by catching the shards in his hands. They all fell through his palms as if he was nothing more than water, slowly, bouncing softly when they hit the carpet at his feet. It was only when the glass stopped falling that he noticed he was bleeding.
---
6 months. 2 weeks. 5 days. 14 hours.
That was the amount of time Kuroo had known Kei was sick.
Those last months seemed to wither away to nothing as Kei did much of the same, not really feeling like the third of their relationship that it really had been.
He wanted to cry. To pound the ground and wail in agony as he screamed at the sky, ‘WHY?’
Why Kei? Why he who had such a bright future?
He could’ve gone to college. He could’ve done anything. He was smart enough to be a doctor, a scientist, a lawyer.
He could’ve played volleyball professionally. If he wanted. He was tall. Learning more, getting better every day. He would’ve been amazing.
He could’ve been with Kuroo longer. A day. A month. A year. Maybe forever, if Kei was feeling benevolent. Forever always sounded like a good option as long as he was involved.
But there was no forever.
There wasn’t even a tomorrow.
Not even a little while later.
Not a ‘in a few minutes’.
And he couldn’t cry. He didn’t feel like he deserved to. He hadn’t been there. In the last hours, or even the last moments. He had been lying in bed, hours away, worrying about a chemistry test that he had taken earlier in the day.
His brother had been the one to call him. It wasn’t until then that Kuroo realized he had never actually talked to his big brother before. He’d slept in his room while Kei was sick and seen pictures and worn his clothes when he forgot to bring his own, but he never actually talked to him.
He sounded like him. Not so much in tone or actual sound, but just. The cadence, the rhythm of the words, though masked by grief, was so remarkably similar to Kei that Kuroo felt sick.
He got the opportunity to see him one last time before his memory was sealed away in a box. But he couldn’t. Not more than a minute. Because that wasn’t him. Kei was warm and alive and walked with a prideful stride. He never laid that still, even in sleep.
He went through the motions of the funeral. He accepted condolences. He refused, and then accepted people’s offers of help in getting through the last week of school and registration for the next semester. He completed these things robotically as well.
Two weeks after the semester concluded, or three weeks without Kei, Kuroo finally went to see him. He tried to put thought into his visit. He even brought a bouquet of flowers that Kuroo felt proud of. Kei secretly liked getting flowers, but always scolded Kuroo if he did not consider the meaning of each and every leaf in the vase. Daisies and Pink Carnations and Irises and Primrose were the things he set before the headstone. Yet when he opened his mouth to speak, to give his apologies for not being there when Kei needed him most, he felt foolish. Whatever it was he could say, Kei already knew. And if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t hear it from Kuroo speaking it to a rock.
He knew what Kei would say if he was here, watching Kuroo mope around and stand still in life, unable to move forward, held back by something out of his control.
Something cutting along the lines of “You’re being pathetic. I’m not worth it. Move on. Get over it. I’m still going to be gone when you wake up in the morning tomorrow, and when you wake up with someone new ten years from now. I love you, but don’t ruin your life over me.”
Kuroo laughed to himself as he straightened the flowers in front of Kei’s name.
Yeah, he loved him, and yeah, it felt like there was a big fucking crack in his soul from where Kei made his exit. He may have no motivation left to move on, but he had to try. He couldn’t forget that it was Kei’s words that made sure he was still in school the last few weeks. And his words and hopes for Kuroo to forget, to not see him suffer in his last days, could be his motivation until he found his own once more.
It wasn’t easy walking away from the gravestone that day. No matter what sort of resolve Kuroo had found to continue on and try to make his way alone, Kei was still gone, and it wasn’t fair.