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Kenma stood behind the door frame out of sight. He needed a moment to prepare himself for the tornado that was about to happen. He took a deep breath in. A deep breath out. He cracked his neck on both sides. After another moment he used to gather his nerves, he walked into one of the extra practice gyms.
“Before you ask, no,” he announced walking into the gym.
“Kenma! Set for them! We can play a game that way!” Bokuto ran at him.
“No.”
“Please!” Bokuto continued, “I have Akaashi and they could have you and then we-“
“No.”
“You know, Kenma,” Kuroo butted in, “It wouldn’t kill you to send us some tosses. You don’t have to stay long.”
“Well, since you asked so nicely Kuro,” Kenma paused and looked at him philosophically, “No.”
“Kenma! I’ll totally buy you some pork buns if you-“ Bokuto got cut off early.
“No.”
“Okay, but-“ Kuroo started.
“No.”
“Okay, why are you here then, Kenma-san?” a first year from Fukurodani asked. Kenma debated asking him not to call him that, but he decided he didn’t want to be in this gym longer than physically necessary.
“I’m actually here to borrow your setter for a minute. I have a question about his long distance back toss,” Kenma said making eye contact with Akaashi, who quickly looked away.
“Will you set for us afterwards because you stole Akaashi from us?”
“Oh, yeah. Absolutely,” Kenma responded with a smile.
Akaashi started to walk over to where Kenma was standing by the door. The others stayed where they were and he could hear the remnants of their conversation.
“I’m excited that Kenma is going to set for you!” Bokuto exclaimed.
“He won’t,” the first year said.
“But he just said he would!” Bokuto gestured wildly.
“You’ve spent so many more hours with Kenma than this guy has and yet he still knows Kenma better,” Kuroo pointed out. Their discussion, unsurprisingly, turned quickly into bickering. In Bokuto’s defense, he had once set for Shouyou at the summer camp for a bit, but since Karasuno wasn’t coming to this mini camp, he had no vague desire. Even when it was Shouyou, he only stayed for like three minutes anyway. The only reason he stayed at all was because he’s been on the other side of a nagging Shouyou, and the small ginger can be really persistent and annoying.
“I can’t believe you choose to put up with this,” Kenma remarked when Akaashi got within earshot.
Akaashi ignored the comment. “We both know that your long backset is better than mine, so what is it?”
“I just wanted to let you know that you know where to find me, whenever you decide you need to talk to someone,” Kenma said, his already quiet voice dropping even lower.
“I don’t know what you want me to talk to you about,” he said, turning away.
“I don’t know what it is either, but I know you won’t tell anyone else. And you should at least tell someone,” he said as he bent down to pick up a stray volleyball.
“How did you know?” He asked turning back around to face him.
“I know you think you’re unreadable and to your credit, you really are harder to read than most people,” he said gesturing to the rowdy players, “But I noticed your reaction time was markedly slower than usual during our last game, and since you hardly had any penalty laps, I doubt it was physical fatigue.”
“Whatever you think, Nekoma’s brain,” he said sarcastically as he walked away.
“It’s actually what I know, Keiji.”
“Will you set for us now, Kenma?” Bokuto asked.
Kenma moved towards the door, then tossed the ball straight up into the air. He sent a long distance backset with fairly decent accuracy right over the Fukurodani first year’s head. He was no Kageyama Tobio, but it ended up being an impressive enough set.
“Akaashi! Can you do that next? That was awesome!”
Kenma left the gym, fully confident in the fact that he would have a visitor later.
——————
“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come after all,” Kenma called as he heard the rustling of the hatch.
“I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t be out here this long,” Akaashi said pulling himself onto the roof and closing the hatch behind him. “It really gets cold here at night, doesn’t it?”
“That’s because you’re sweaty. Here,” he said gently tossing a Nekoma sweatshirt to him.
“I’m not going to be able to fit into your clothes,” he said, sitting down next to Kenma.
“It’s Kuro’s.” He took sip out of a thermos that was releasing steam into the cool night air.
Akaashi looked like he didn’t really want to be wearing Kuroo’s sweatshirt, but slid it on anyway. He put his cold hands into the front pocket. The two sat in a comfortable silence. They’d spent plenty of time together, mostly at Bokuto’s parents’ house, and were used to sitting in silence together. Most people might find silence uncomfortable, but both of them were the quiet type and were completely comfortable with the other’s silence.
“I’m still cold. Do you mind if I have some?” Akaashi asked, nodding his head at the thermos.
“Ah, you don’t want it,” Kenma said apologetically.
“Are you trying to tell me that’s not hot chocolate? I can smell it, Kenma.”
“It’s four shots of chocolate vodka and hot water.” He took another sip.
“You’re a degenerate.”
Kenma just shrugged with a small smile on his face.
“So, do you and Kuroo-san meet up here for your lovers’ assignations?” Akaashi inquired jokingly.
“I wouldn’t call us lovers, and no, we have a mutual agreement that he doesn’t come up here.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not supposed to be up here, and I’m drinking. He calls it plausible deniability so that he won’t get in trouble if we’re caught. Don’t worry though. The three of us are the only ones who know about this.”
It was true. Akaashi had found out by accident. The year before at this camp, he couldn’t sleep and decided to walk around the halls to help him think. It was really late, so he figured nobody would be up, but he heard a key turn a lock. He turned the corner to see Kenma walking out of a door labeled “authorized staff only.” When Kenma saw him, he showed him that behind the door there was a hatch with access to the roof.
“I meant why wouldn’t you call yourselves lovers. Also I’ve changed my mind.” He reached his arm out for the thermos.
“Who’s the degenerate now?” He watched Akaashi take a sip and then cough.
“Oh,” Kenma said, “I forgot to warn you not to inhale the vodka fumes. My bad.” This earned him a glare.
“Wait a minute,” Akaashi said after recovering and taking another sip, “This is actually pretty good, but it’s strong.”
“I’m frankly not sure how you missed the vodka smell.”
“So,” he said taking another sip, making sure not to inhale the vaporized alcohol, “Let’s go back to telling me why would you wouldn’t call yourselves lovers.”
“I thought we were talking about your problems, not mine,” Kenma said, taking the thermos back.
“Why not do both? Only seems fair.” Akaashi was thankful for the surprisingly good drink. It was warming him quickly.
“Well, I guess I would say it’s because nothing has changed.”
“What do you mean nothing’s changed? You are together now, aren’t you?” He took the thermos back, mostly so that it could warm his hands.
“I mean that nothing has changed. I get that he doesn’t want people to know about the relationship. That doesn’t really bother me, but what does is that even when we’re alone, nothing has changed. I tried to kiss him for the first time the other day and he just dodged me. I’m lucky if I can get him to hold my hand while we’re watching a movie. I suppose we do cuddle more than we used to,” he trailed off.
“What do you mean more than you used to? I wasn’t aware friends typically cuddled,” he said through a laugh.
“I mean cuddle is a pretty vague word, I suppose. Kuro’s been sleeping on my shoulder during long bus or train rides for a really long time now. He also prefers watching movies or even me playing games while laying down, so I tend to sit on one end of the couch and he has his head resting on top my thigh because his ridiculously long legs wouldn’t fit otherwise. Every once in a while he wraps his arms around my waist and falls asleep like that. That one used to be a bit more iffy before we started dating if you see where I’m going with that.”
“Considering the fact that we have similar sized legs, I object to them being called ridiculous,” he said stretching out his legs.
“Rub it in, will you,” Kenma said, bumping into his shoulder.
“Well, it seems like he’s the one initiating it, so I am not sure I see the issue.”
“The issue is that it’s something we were doing as friends. Let me ask you a question, and answer honestly, do you think Kuro would quit volleyball for me if he had to?”
He didn’t even need to think about the answer. “Without a doubt.”
“So, think about it this way. I wrestled for a long time about telling him my feelings. He clearly wasn’t interested, so I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable and lose him as a friend, but I also didn’t want to start acting in a way that pushed him away. I figured laying the cards out on the table was the best call. As much as I would hate losing him as a friend because I fell in love with him, I would hate it more if it was because I chose to lie. For all I knew, he was straight and had no interest in me. So when I told him that I had to tell him my feelings because I was afraid of losing our friendship, I didn’t expect him to suggest would could be together.”
“Ah, you think he’s being with you because he didn’t want to hurt your feelings or even that he just wanted to make you happy. The reason he won’t do couple things with you is that he’s not romantically interested, but he feels like he has to since dating was his idea?”
Kenma nodded. He wasn’t going to tell anyone about this, but now that he did, he was glad he chose to. If he trusted anyone to look analytically at a situation, it would be Akaashi. A part of him also felt good telling his story. For Kenma, divulging a secret comes with two strong and distinct emotions. The first is always the feeling of weightlessness. The second is the crushing feeling of being noticed, analyzed. Having his thoughts hanging in the air made him feel naked. Free, but naked.
“You can’t tell me it’s not a possibility.” He leaned back on his arms and tilted his face towards the night sky. Akaashi sat silently, thinking of what to say. He hated to admit it, but there was a really good chance that Kenma was right about the situation.
“You’re right- I can’t tell you it’s not a possibility, because it definitely is.” He expected Kenma to tense up, or have some reaction to hearing his response, but he had none. His lack of reaction had given Akaashi a pang of sadness. Kenma wasn’t bouncing the idea off of him. He’d clearly thought about it extensively and had pretty much accepted it. “However, even you said that you thought he was straight, so maybe he‘s taking it slow because he’s new to being with a man.”
“When was the last time you saw Kuro do anything gingerly or with apprehension of any kind?”
“Oh, uh,” he started to answer but trailed off. Kenma was right. Kuroo didn’t do things halfway. He threw his whole heart into everything he wanted. He couldn’t think of a simple example where he didn’t.
“Exactly.” Akaashi hated how calm Kenma looked while saying that. He wished he could comfort him in some way, but he knew Kenma well enough to know that there was nothing he could do to ease his pain and that pain must be overwhelming. He swallowed his pride to admit his unrequited feelings, and then by some miracle they weren’t unrequited all of a sudden. He knew how Kenma soared with happiness when it happened. He remembered when Kenma first told him they were dating. He could hardly keep the smile off of his face when telling him that Kuroo was his boyfriend. Then he found out it was a lie. His greatest fantasy was dashed to pieces right in front of him. He surely would have preferred the original option than getting his hopes up and then snapped off.
“So, what are you going to do about it then?” He knew he couldn’t comfort Kenma, but maybe he could help him through it.
“I’m going to stop being a selfish coward about it.”
“That seems unfair to yourself,” Akaashi said, taken aback. Though he seemed like the type to be hypercritical of himself, Akaashi found Kenma to be the most honest person he knew, whether the honest truth was good or bad.
“I have a friend who cares about me so deeply that he would make himself uncomfortable and not say a word about it just to spare my feelings. Every moment I don’t talk to him about it is a moment I’m taking advantage of his kindness, but honestly I’m too scared to do it right now, but I’m also sure the guilt will overtake my fear soon enough.”
“Why are you so afraid?”
“I do actually have feelings, Akaashi. I know everyone likes to pretend I don’t so it’s easier for them to interact with me, but I am still a human being.” Unfortunately, Akaashi knew exactly what Kenma was talking about. He’d watched people act like Kenma was a robot or a dangerous animal plenty of times. Sure, Kenma was fairly weird, but he was a regular high school boy, not a wild boar. Though if given the choice between an angry Kenma and a rampaging wild boar, Akaashi would probably take his chances with aforementioned boar.
“I’m not saying you don’t have emotions. I’m asking why you have this one. If Kuroo-san did all of this to spare your feelings, you really think talking to him about it would be the cause of the end of your friendship? I think you could probably hit him with your car and he might insist on staying friends.”
“Exactly, which is why I am the selfish coward in the situation. I’m holding onto my fake fantasy because I can’t bear to let it go right now, even though I’m acutely aware that it’s fake.” If anyone but Kenma said that, he would be shocked. That amount of self awareness would probably kill Bokuto on the spot.
“You know it’s okay not to be perfect every minute of every day, right?”
“That seems a bit hypocritical coming from you.” The two shared a laugh. The drink they’d been sharing this entire time was finally empty. You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at them, but the were incredibly similar in the way they interacted with the world. Calm, observant, and the ones pulling the stings. They were similar enough that the more they knew about themselves, the more they knew about the other.
“Maybe you should talk to him now. Tell him what you told me. You’re already thinking about it, so you might as well rip off the bandaid.”
“You’re correct in that I should, but I’m pretty sure my legs are glued to this roof.”
“What if I sent Kuroo-san up here? I can come back to be here for you once he leaves.”
“I don’t even know that I’d be able to do it,” he said honestly. He laid back so that he was looking fully up at the stars, but then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He heard the rustling of the hatch. “Akaashi, wait, don’t leave yet.”
“Uh,” Akaashi’s voice came from right next to him, “I think we are about to have a problem.”
Kenma opened his eyes and sprang into action. He launched the empty thermos off of the roof and hoped that nobody was down there. He leaned over and quickly whispered to his friend, “Please blame me for this entirely. I don’t have a reputation to uphold, and you don’t deserve to be suspended because I dragged you here.”
“You’re going to need quicker reflexes if you really thought I wouldn’t notice you launch that. What are you, tipsy already?”
Kenma stood up and faced the hatch.
“Kuro?”
“You scared the shit out of us, Kuroo-san,” Akaashi said, getting up. “What happened to you not coming up here.”
“I actually decided I needed to talk to Kenma, risk of being suspended and my demotion from captaincy causing the dramatic decline of Nekoma be damned. Nice sweatshirt, by the way,” he said with a nervous smile.
“That seems a bit dramatic. Kai would make a great captain in your stead,” Kenma pointed out, now wishing he hadn’t thrown his thermos. It was going to be annoying to go retrieve. If it hadn’t been so expensive, he would have considered just leaving it there.
“Hey- I’m hurt. Where is the respect for your elder? I am your Kuroo-san after all. Scratch that, I’ve been promoted to your Kuroo-senpai,” he said with a giant smirk.
“I would rather take the direct route of six stories straight down to recover my thermos than ever call you that.”
“Actually,” Akaashi said with an uncharacteristic smile, “I will go get your thermos for you. I’m about ready for bed and you two should talk.”
Kenma shot him a look begging him not to leave, but Akaashi just went quietly over to the hatch and made his way down into the building.
Kenma couldn’t help but think, ‘That motherfucker just Uno-Reverse-Carded me.’ They were supposed to be solving Akaashi’s problem, not his own.
Kenma looked down at his feet. He felt a pit grow in his stomach as he heard the hatch lid close. He was alone with Kuroo. Ever fiber of his being was screaming at him to run, but he knew he had to stand his ground. He wouldn’t let Kuroo have to be the one to bring it up. He would do the honorable thing.
He looked up at Kuroo, who was moving towards him. “Kuro- We need to-“
His words were interrupted by Kuroo closing the distance between them with a really aggressive kiss. His hands found their way up into Kenma’s hair.
Kenma thought about three things in this order: how surprised he was, how concerned he was that his lips surely tasted like cheap vodka, and how bad Kuroo was at kissing.
He clearly had no idea what he was doing. It dawned on Kenma. Kuroo never had a serious girlfriend before. Kenma hadn’t really had one either, but unlike Kuroo, he’d had a few forays into the physical side of a relationship. The second he had the realization, Kuroo pulled away. Kenma felt a blip of sadness. He’d taken Kuroo’s first kiss from him. Kuroo really would do anything to make Kenma happy.
“Kuro, you don’t have to pretend anymore. I’m sorry that it took me this long to talk to you about it.” He looked back down at his feet. Guilt swelled within him. Kuroo was so sentimental. His first kiss surely was a big deal to him, and he wasted it on saving Kenma’s feelings. If Kenma had only gotten the nerve to talk to him sooner. He could have- no, he should have- prevented this from happening.
“What? Oh. Uh,” Kuroo said, taking a step back and sheepishly putting his hand behind his head, “I uh. I-“
“I know you well enough to know how much your first kiss should have meant to you. I’m sorry that you wasted it on sparing my feelings.” He tried to look up at his soon to be ex-boyfriend, but he couldn’t. His eyes were trained on the concrete directly in front of his shoes.
“What?”
“You really don’t need to keep pretending. I know you just said you’d date me so it wouldn’t ruin our friendship, because you’re just too kind and that’s why you didn’t want to kiss me or hold my hand, and I should have come to you sooner, and I’m so sorry-“ he was rambling on and on quickly and his eyes were welling with tears. He was normally so good at containing his emotions, but his heart and mind were racing. This was uncharted territory for him. His guilt and his fear were eating him alive. He was afraid that soon there would be nothing left
“Oh my god. I uh-“ he moved closer and put his arms around Kenma who tensed up at the touch, “I was just scared, Kenma. I’ve never done any of this before, and you know what you’re doing and I don’t and you really caught me off guard when you tried to kiss me so I got scared and I know I should have talked to you about it sooner, but I was embarrassed and I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry, but please I know I’m bad at this but feel free to like teach me what to do, I tried looking online, but it wasn’t really helpful, and I-“ This time Kuroo was the one rambling a mile a minute.
Kenma finally looked up at him, his eyes glistened, “You’re actually like romantically interested in me?”
Kuroo looked confused. “You’re literally my boyfriend.”
Kenma’s mouth hung open, speechless.
“Why wouldn’t I be? I was the one who actually suggested we should be together after all.”
Kenma, suddenly embarrassed, dropped his eye contact again. He quietly said, “I thought you were just trying to spare my feelings.”
Kuroo laughed, gently. “I’m sorry for laughing but you are way off, and I really am sorry for making you feel this way. How about we promise to just talk to each other about how we’re feeling from now own.”
Kenma put his face into Kuroo’s chest, and squeezed his arms around Kuroo. He mumbled into his chest a mostly unintelligible “I promise.”
“Hey,” Kuroo said, separating Kenma from his chest, “No, hey, stop that,” he said wiping a tear from Kenma’s face.
Kenma covered his eyes in embarrassment. “Oh my god, I can’t believe how badly I misread this.”
“Kozume Kenma, master of deduction, you clearly are lacking sleep. We also do need get up early for the extra training session tomorrow, so we should get going.”
Kenma groaned. “Do we have to do the training? This entire mini-camp is training. Why do we have to do even more training?”
“You’re going to make a terrific captain next year. Come on. Let’s go,” he said grabbing Kenma’s hand and pulling him towards the hatch. The two went down into the building carefully and Kenma made sure to listen that nobody was walking around to hear them coming out of the door. He’d made that mistake once already.
They walked through the door, and Kenma turned around to lock the door.
“You never told me where you got that key.”
“Oh, it was sitting in the lock when I walked by this door the first time, so I took it. The only other thing I’ve found it unlocks are janitors’ closets on the second and fourth floors.”
“I can’t believe I’m dating a criminal.”
“Kuro, please shut up.”
They started walking down the hallway hand in hand, when Kenma abruptly stopped.
“Wait, you said I could teach you how to do some of this stuff, right?”
“Uh- yeah,” he said, surprised at the sudden change in mood.
Kenma walked up to him and put his arms around his neck. “I’m going to jump. You’re going to catch me under my thighs. You can balance me against the wall if I’m too heavy for you to carry.”
“Not a chance. I am very big and very strong if you haven’t noticed. I could throw you like thirty feet if I needed to,” he said looking into Kenma’s eyes that were so close to his own.
“Oh my god if you’re going to be like this, I take it all back.”
Kuroo stuck his lower lip out into a pout.
“Okay, okay fine. You win, I’m about to jump. Are you ready?”
Kuroo nodded and Kenma jumped. He successfully grabbed under one thigh but not the other. Kenma slipped back to the ground. He laughed.
“Wait let me try again. I’ll totally catch you this time,” and he did.
They kissed, and they really kissed this time. No weird feelings from either of them. Relief coursed through both of them. It was still a bit awkward, but it was good. Kuroo slowly walked Kenma back into the wall. Kenma made a mental note to make fun of him for it once they were finished.
“Disgusting,” a voice called from down the hallway, “I am absolutely disgusted.”
The unexpected voice spooked Kuroo, causing him to drop Kenma, which led to Kenma’s head knocking into the wall. “Ah fuck, Kuro.”
“I cannot believe I walked down and then up six flights of stairs to bring this to you and then I have to see this. Kenma, you’re absolutely garbage at breakups. Absolutely unbelievable you two. The sheer audacity,” he said holding out the thermos to Kenma.
Kenma rubbed the back of his head with one hand and grabbed the thermos with the other.
“Nice going, Kuroo-san, you injured your best player. Responsible captain my ass.” Kenma thought it was interesting that Akaashi said that, even if he was joking. He wondered if Akaashi actually thought that he was the best player on the team.
“Sorry,” Kuroo said, clearly very embarrassed, “I forgot you were coming back.”
“Uh, yeah. I can tell,” he tried, but failed to hold back his smile, “I’m going to go try to scrub this image out of my brain with my toothbrush. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
When Akaashi rounded the corner away from them, Kuroo put his forehead gently against Kenma’s and started laughing.
Kenma was right.
His first kiss really did mean a lot to him, and he would never forget either of them.