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“Convincing me to take this class was an unforgivable sin,” Kuroo said.
“Listen, it was supposed to be really easy with the other professor,” Kenma defended, “I didn’t expect it to be taught by a transfer professor from hell.”
“I gave up my perfect GPA for this class,” he whined.
Kenma leaned across the table to give him an apologetic kiss. They went back to scouring their notes in frustrated silence before Kuroo got up to start making one of his famous charts.
Kuroo was by all means an excellent student, but panicked before every single exam and at the peak of his panic, he gave up on his normal organized study methods to instead create an unbelievably complicated flowchart on the whiteboard. It became quite a joke within their friend group and because of it, Kuroo’s friends bought him a total of thirty five dry erase markers on his birthday.
“You swapped adduction and abduction,” Kenma pointed out.
“At least I know the difference between perimysium and epimysium,” Kuroo said, switching the vocabulary on the board.
“But you don’t know the difference between diaphysis and epiphysis,” Kenma said, “Or do you.”
“I absolutely do,” Kuroo said, looking through his notes, “Not know what those words mean.”
Kenma stretched and got down from his tall chair and grabbed one of the many dry erase markers strewn on the floor of their library study room. He wrote the definitions of diaphysis and epiphysis on the bottom right corner of the whiteboard.
“You’re ruining my board with your ugly handwriting,” Kuroo complained.
Kenma drew a sloppy heart in the middle of the board and Kuroo erased it.
“Hurtful,” Kenma said, “I’m no longer helping you study.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the one helping you study,” Kuroo said.
“I’m going to do way better on this final than you, so, I’m the one helping you,” Kenma pointed out, “I already have a higher grade in the class.”
“Which I’m still mad about, by the way,” Kuroo said, “This professor has no idea how to grade.”
“You’re just mad that someone who half-asses their classes is getting a better grade than you,” Kenma said, hopping back up on his chair.
He wasn’t wrong. It did often bother Kuroo that Kenma put almost no work into his classes and yet still maintained pretty good grades. They weren’t by any means as good as Kuroo’s, but they weren’t bad either.
“You won’t on this final though,” Kuroo said, pointing at him with the dry erase marker, “My neuroscience knowledge is going to carry me.”
Kenma pulled up his files for the class and flipped through them until he found the one with his syllabus, which he had virtually drawn pictures of swords all over, obscuring a fair amount of the words.
“Neuroscience is only twenty percent of the final,” Kenma read after erasing one of the swords, “It’s not going to be able to carry you.”
“Bet?” Kuroo asked.
“Bet,” Kenma confirmed.
“Grade on the final or the overall end of term grade?” Kuroo asked.
“Just the final,” Kenma said with a nod.
“You’re on,” Kuroo said, uncapping a fourth marker. He’d read somewhere that different colored notes help with memory recall, something that he took to heart.
“You’re doing the dishes for two weeks if you lose,” Kenma said.
“And you’re taking me on a real date,” Kuroo said, “No pajamas, video games, or campus dining involved.”
“What’s wrong with pajamas, takeout, and video games?” Kenma asked.
“Nothing, but I want to do something new for once,” Kuroo said.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like cuddling on their couch with some video games and takeout; it was actually one of his favorite things to do. It’s just that it was what they always did and he was an absolute sucker for romance. If he could live in a romantic comedy, he would.
“Fine,” Kenma said, “I’ll take that bet.”
Ironically enough, the mere existence of the bet led to much more efficient studying on both of their parts. For the first time in many years, Kenma actually rewrote his sloppy notes into a much more organized study packet, and Kuroo actually listened to the recordings he took of lectures. He always meant to listen to them, but when it came to it, he could never get more than ten minutes in. It was just so boring and he’d already heard them so it was hard to get into the right mood to listen to them. This time though, there was something at stake.
Grades? Temporary. The ego boost that comes from winning a bet? Permanent.
“Why didn’t you bring a real jacket?” an appropriately dressed Kuroo asked, the snow catching in his messy hair.
“It’s a three minute walk,” Kenma said, pulling his freezing hands into his sweatshirt pocket, “I’ll survive.”
“This is not an olive branch,” Kuroo said, grabbing one of Kenma’s cold hands and holding it between his warm ones, “I’m still going to absolutely destroy you. Have you decided where you’re taking me?”
“I haven’t even thought about it,” Kenma lied, “Because I’m not losing this bet.”
Normally he had a pretty good guess as to how their bets were going to go. He liked analyzing and strategizing, but this time it was a total toss up. It could go either way. The only thing he knew was that they were both going to do really bad on it, not that that affected the bet in any way.
“Sure you are,” Kuroo said.
“Actually, yes. I’m taking you on a date to our kitchen where you can wash the dishes,” Kenma amended.
“Romantic,” Kuroo chirped, leaning down to kiss his forehead.
They walked quietly into their classroom and quickly got to taking their final. When they both wanted to take a class together, Kenma recommended anatomy because he needed a human sciences credit and reasoned that they both owned human bodies, so how hard could it be. Apparently it could be a lot harder than he ever imagined.
A bit surprisingly, both boys were absolutely thrilled with their performance until they got to the essay questions. This professor always came up with the hardest possible long response questions to ask and then graded them as harshly as possible.
It took Kenma a lot of self control not to curse out loud when he saw that both essay questions were on the neuroscience portion of the class. It made some sense, considering there were very few neuroscience questions on the rest of the the test, but it still caught him off guard. He plowed through them, thankful that he’d listened to Kuroo blab on about neuroscience for years and knew some of the information from that alone. He could do it.
He was at peace with his exam performance when he handed it in.
Kenma popped his head into Kuroo’s room, still mentally cursing that he lost by a single multiple choice question.
“You good to leave in a half hour?” he asked.
“Yeah that-“ Kuroo said looking up at him, “You look nice.”
“No pajamas,” Kenma said, “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Uh, yeah,” Kuroo said with a smile, “You just look good, that’s all.”
Kenma rolled his eyes and walked out of the room, pulling up the tickets on his phone to make sure he’d bought the right ones for the third time that day. Upon checking once again for the correct date and time, he flopped himself onto the couch and read about a new co-op game that was coming out. Not only did he genuinely think it would be a lot of fun, he also thought Kuroo might like it too. He was mentally debating whether or not to preorder it or just wait to buy it when Kuroo walked out of his room.
“Ready to go?” Kuroo asked.
“It pisses me off how attractive you are sometimes,” Kenma said, looking him up and down.
He wasn’t wearing anything overly nice, just a pair of nice jeans and a sweater, but he looked good. He’d gotten so used to seeing Kuroo in athletic pants that he forgot he does in fact have other clothes. It wasn’t like Kenma could throw any stones about that, though. He was just as bad, if not worse.
“I’m more than just eye candy, you know,” Kuroo said, fake disapproval in his tone.
“Sure you are, pretty boy,” Kenma said, “Keep telling yourself that.”
He loved that term. It had a somewhat negative connotation and that was what he liked most about it. Calling his boyfriend attractive was so much more fun when he could do it wrapped in an insult.
“Brains and beauty combined over here,” Kuroo insisted, “So where are we off to?”
“That’s a surprise,” Kenma said with a grin, “You’ll want to dress warm though,”
“Are we going to be outside?” Kuroo asked, confused.
“For pretty much all of it, yes,” Kenma nodded in confirmation.
“You planned an outdoor date during the coldest month of the year?” Kuroo asked.
“Cry about it,” Kenma responded.
“You’re cold today,” Kuroo said, “But not as cold as we are about to be. You do realize it’s snowing, right?”
“We don’t have to go if it’s going to bother you that much,” Kenma said, his mouth twisting into a small frown.
“I was kidding,” Kuroo said, noticing the look on his face, “Let’s go.”
They walked to the train, hand in hand, as Kenma complained once again that the composition of the final was biased. Kuroo just laughed and suggested that he should have studied harder if he wanted to do better.
They weren’t on the train for terribly long, discussing the class they were taking together the next semester, before Kenma directed them off the train. He signaled for a cab and upon getting in, showed the driver the address on his phone, not wanting to give up the surprise quite yet.
Kuroo guessed as to where they were going the entire way there, unable to successfully do so. Kenma kept telling him that he’d finally lost his temper and was selling him off to the circus. He pointed out that Kuroo could at the very least be one of the people selling popcorn, but could probably stretch himself and become one of those slightly freaky contortionists with his really long legs. This prompted Kuroo to ask if they were actually going to some weird outdoor circus. They weren’t.
Finally they’d reached their destination, and Kuroo was none the wiser as to where they were. Kenma scanned them in, and the attendants handed them two hot chocolates.
“What is this place?” Kuroo asked, his hands wrapping around the warm cup.
“You’ll see in,” he said, checking the time on his phone, “About ten minutes. Do you really not know where we are?”
“I have no idea,” Kuroo admitted.
“That makes it even more fun, even though it’s a bit cold,” Kenma said, “Let’s get closer.”
Kuroo wrapped his arm around Kenma’s shoulder.
“I meant to the actual event, not each other,” Kenma pointed out.
“Obviously I knew that,” Kuroo said, not knowing that.
They walked together, sipping on their pleasantly warm drinks. It had finally started to snow lightly and flurries drifted around them, blustering in the slight winter wind. Thankfully the cold wasn’t too bad, though it certainly wasn’t a particularly pleasant temperature.
“Any minute now,” Kenma said.
“Wait a minute, are these things about to light up?” Kuroo asked, “That would be super awesome.”
He was referring to the enormous dark wire statues that were getting difficult to see as the sun finally finished setting.
“I have great news for you then,” Kenma said with a laugh as the lights flicked on.
They were surrounded by lighted sculptures made of different colors, brightnesses, and flickering patterns. Most of them were enormous, but there were also some little ones that moved around.
“This is so cool,” he said, his eyes lighting up.
They walked around, taking poorly lit pictures of each other in front of the different pieces.
Kuroo’s favorite was an enormous display that mimicked fireworks. The lights would shoot all the way up the statue and then flicker out into firework patterns. It seemed there must have been at least twenty different ones and he was absolutely enamored. Below the firework sky, there appeared to be two small people made of purple lights sitting on a boat, watching the firework display. Kenma, watching his boyfriend’s fascination, wondered if he could eventually arrange for them to be on a boat and watch a firework display.
Kenma’s favorite piece on the other hand was a modern sculpture that was meant to be abstract, but definitely looked like a certain something.
“This is definitely my favorite one,” Kenma said with a laugh, gesturing at the large lit up artwork.
“You’re the worst. You know that, right?” Kuroo asked, bumping into his shoulder.
“What? Some of us are classy enough to like abstract art,” Kenma feigned, “Sorry that you’re too much of a simpleton to get it.”
“Oh please,” Kuroo said, “Spare me the lecture, your highness.”
“I’m a connoisseur of the fine arts,” Kenma explained, “And this is the best piece of art I’ve ever witnessed. Look at the dynamic composition. The shading. The colors that bleed into each other.”
“What even is it supposed to actually be?” Kuroo asked.
“I told you. It’s abstract art. Not everything has to be a perfect representation of reality,” Kenma chided, “Art is about what you feel, not what you see. If you were to just-“
“Kenma,” Kuroo interrupted, exasperated, “Stop pretending it’s not a penis.”
“Massive dong,” Kenma nodded, appreciatively, “It’s quite beautiful.”
“I hate you so much,” Kuroo said, a belly laugh escaping him.
They deposited their empty cups into the trash and walked, fingers laced together, out of the display area once they’d seen every thing there was to see.
“This was awesome,” Kuroo said, “Thank you.”
“I’m glad the cold was worth it,” Kenma said, giving his hand a squeeze.
“I could look at stuff like that all day,” Kuroo admitted.
“It’s a good thing they change the pieces every year, then. Isn’t it?” Kenma said with a smile.
He pulled up his phone and set a reminder to bring Kuroo again the next year. Maybe it could be their thing and maybe he wouldn’t make Kuroo have to win it through a bet, though that’d be significantly less fun.
“You’re the light of my life,” Kuroo said.
“Gross,” Kenma replied, pulling Kuroo down to kiss him.