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Kenma hears the 8-bit sound of his loss in Tetris right as a hushed giggle rises from one of the three girls seated across from him on the subway. From what he can pick up, they’re talking about White Day.
That’s right, White Day. That is coming soon, isn’t it? Between exams and preparing for Spring High, he had kinda forgotten White Day was a thing. Not that it ever really mattered to Kenma. He had never gotten chocolate on Valentine’s Day from anyone except his family, and he never remembered to give them anything back. His mother and sister used to gently scold him for it, and he had frowned and decided then and there that the whole deal was more of a headache than he needed.
Speaking of headaches, he can feel one coming on now. Currently the girl who had been giggling earlier is speculating about whether a certain Yamamoto-senpai will be getting her a gift for the handmade chocolates she gave him, which conjures the image in his mind of their team’s Yamamoto, who would more likely stick his head in a lion’s mouth than successfully give a girl chocolates. The idea of Tora as the ringmaster at a circus taking his top hat off and sticking his mohawk-head in a lion’s mouth has him letting out a small snort.
“Something funny about Tetris, Kenma?” Kuroo says. His eyes had been closed and his arms crossed, so Kenma assumed he was taking a nap. Now he opens one eye and peers down at Kenma. Guess not.
“Not really,” Kenma says. He snaps Kuroo’s phone shut and tosses it back to him, unsurprised when he sees Kuroo unfold his arms and catch it in an instant. “You need a newer phone.”
“It works fine, doesn’t it?” He flips his phone open and starts up a new game of Tetris.
“Maybe for someone like my grandmother,” Kenma mutters under his breath.
Kuroo laughs at that. “Your grandmother’s a nice lady so I don’t see how that’s an insult.”
He grimaces when he loses in little over a minute. Kenma can tell Kuroo’s bored with it already by the way he pockets his phone and goes back to leaning against the window with his arms crossed. He glances at Kenma instead. “You’re grumpy because you forgot your phone today.”
Kenma decides glaring out of the corner of his eye is more efficient than saying anything.
“Where’s your PSP? Or your DS?”
“The DS was charging and the PSP’s in my sister’s room since she borrowed it last night.”
“Aww, didn’t want to wake your sister up just to get your game? How thoughtful of you,” Kuroo says while smirking, but Kenma thinks he probably means it. His smile tends to look like that.
Rather than continue the conversation, Kenma leans against the bar next to his seat, closest to the subway door. The girls across from him are apparently still talking about White Day, which is weird because what more was there to talk about, anyway? They weren’t the ones giving chocolates this time.
He doesn’t realize his eyebrows are furrowed until Kuroo opens his phone and sticks it in his face. He looks over at Kuroo but his eyes are closed.
“Here. I installed some new game. I think it’s like Tamagotchi but easier.” He cracks an eye open and Kenma can already tell he’s restraining himself from making a wise crack. “Should tide you over until we get home, right?”
At this point Kenma could continue glaring at Kuroo’s phone like its presence offends him, but he really is bored and tired of having to think about White Day thanks to those girls, so he takes the phone out of Kuroo’s hand.
Besides, he loves Tamagotchi.
Normally Kenma’s after school routine would be to make a beeline for his bed and flop on it for at least a good five minutes before attempting to get anything done. Today, he stops by his sister’s room for his PSP, removes his 3DS from its charger, then flops onto his bed.
He turns onto his back and decides on the DS, which he hasn’t played in a while. When he holds it above his head, he sees the charm he added recently dangle towards him. It’s a black cat with its tail curled around it.
He still remembers with an odd clarity the day Kuroo had given it to him. It was about a month ago. Kuroo had been in a restless kind of mood all week, and at the time, Kenma had chalked it up to the coming of Valentine’s Day.
When they were kids, Valentine’s Day was probably one of Kuroo’s favorite holidays. Free chocolate, after all. But when middle school came around, things changed.
“I don’t get it,” Kuroo had said during lunch one February day. It had been during his second year of middle school, Kenma’s first. He had hunched over the back of the chair in front of Kenma’s desk, his arms crossed over the top of it.
Kenma felt kinda bad for the girl who usually sat in that seat but cleared out in time for Kuroo to come join him for lunch every day. Some days she’d get back and Kuroo would still be sitting there, but she must have been intimidated because she’d stand by the doorway fidgeting until he left.
On that day, the girl had yet to come back, which meant Kuroo could complain all he wanted. “Eri’s been acting weird around me ever since Valentine’s Day, which is weird because she seemed fine last week.”
He picked a piece of lint off his uniform and rolled it between his fingers, looking at the piece of fuzz while he talked. “I asked Kyoko about it and she said it’s because Haruna gave me chocolates too and I ate them.” He let out a sigh and rested his head on his arms. “I don’t get it. Does this happen when you get chocolates?”
Kenma had finished his lunch and was reaching into his bag for his Gameboy Advance, but he stopped to shoot a glare at Kuroo. “You know I don’t get chocolates on Valentine’s Day.”
The corner of Kuroo’s mouth lifted into his usual smirk. “Whoops. Sorry.”
Kenma had rolled his eyes, taken out his Gameboy and started playing. Kuroo had stayed silent for a minute, but Kenma could tell from the sound of Kuroo tapping his fingers along the chair the conversation wasn’t over. Kenma relented.
“She’s probably jealous,” he said, eyes still on his screen. Mario made a dying noise and he took the opportunity to look up at Kuroo, who was leaning so far over his chin was practically on Kenma’s desk. At Kenma’s comment, he straightened back up.
“Jealous? You think so?” He tilted his head as if considering the possibility. “But Eri’s one of my closest friends in my class. I don’t get why she needs to be jealous. Unless she likes me or something.”
Kenma actually had taken the time to pause his game to level his you might not be bright, but you’re not this dumb stare at Kuroo.
“Okay okay, I guess maybe that’s a possibility. There’s a lot to like after all.”
Kenma’s fingers hovered over the buttons on his Gameboy. Kuroo was taking a long time to get to the point today.
“I just,” Kuroo started. He hunched over until his chin was buried in his arms again. “I don’t really get what I did wrong. Two of my friends gave me chocolates which should be a good thing except now it’s not. And now I don’t know if we’re friends.”
Kuroo was silent again and Kenma was aware of the sound of chairs being pushed back, conversation dying down. There were some hushed whispers about “that messy-haired second-year that always comes here.” Kenma knew the girl who sat in front of them was probably hovering by the doorway already.
“Girls are complicated,” he had said, because he’d seen his father say it, and the other boys in class say it, and sometimes characters in TV shows his sister watched would say it too. He didn’t really know what they meant by it, but it felt like it explained things.
“Yeah, I guess.” Kuroo hadn’t seemed satisfied. Lunch period was over, though, so he got up and pushed his chair in. “Sorry for wasting your precious Super Mario time,” he’d said, and instead of a smirk, he gave a half-smile. Kenma saw him walk past the girl whose name he should really remember by now, shouldn’t he? He watched her scurry back to her seat and when she sat down, Kenma stared aimlessly at the back of her chair, feeling like he should apologize, but for what, he didn’t know.
Kenma always thought Kuroo wasn’t that hard to read. He guessed other people thought differently, since Inuoka had wondered out loud once if he had some sixth sense when it came to Kuroo. On that day during his first year of middle school, though, he knew Kuroo had more to say, but he didn’t know what it was.
Once he entered high school, Kuroo stopped accepting chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Between that, his default smirk, and the ‘I just woke up’ look owing to his sleepy-looking eyes and permanent bedhead, he had inadvertently gained a reputation as something of a bad boy (which makes Kenma snort whenever he thinks about it). It didn’t do much to stop girls from giving him chocolates, but it did make it so that they weren’t too hurt when he rejected them all.
Sometimes, Kenma wondered if maybe it was because Kuroo liked guys, not girls. He’d noticed how touchy he and Bokuto were with each other, and felt like maybe he’d finally figured it out.
When he’d confronted Kuroo about it after joint practice one day, Kuroo had stared at him for a moment and Kenma wondered if he hadn’t crossed a line or said something offensive. But the next second Kuroo was bending over laughing, one hand braced on his knee and the other wiping a tear out of his eye.
“Me and Bokuto? Oh my god, that’s rich,” he’d breathed between peals of laughter. When he finally composed himself, he added, “Bokuto’s my bro, but I’d sooner shave crop circles into my head than go out with that guy. Can you imagine him on a date?” The image seemed to be particularly funny to Kuroo because it set off another laughing fit.
Kenma frowned. “So then, does that mean you’re not…” He paused. He didn’t want to act like it was a bad word or something, but he wasn’t sure if Kuroo would be upset about him assuming things.
When Kuroo had finally settled down for good though, he was looking back at Kenma with a knowing smile. He shrugged. “I don’t really know, to be honest.”
Kenma’s brows furrowed even more and he looked down. He knew they could probably have ended the conversation there, but he felt like he had to finish what he’d set out to fix. He didn’t like not knowing things.
“But. You’d tell me, right? If you were.” He looked up suddenly, eyes wide. “Not because-- not because I have a problem with it.” He glanced away. “It’s fine with me, honestly…” Why was this so difficult to talk about?
He heard a soft chuckle and looked back at Kuroo. He was still smiling, but it seemed more fond. “I’ve given up on hiding things from you a long time ago.” He shrugged again. “No point, since you always figure it out anyway.”
Before Kenma could react, Kuroo had stepped over and captured Kenma in a loose headlock. He mussed up his hair, and Kenma flinched, but didn’t push his arm off. “Thanks for worrying, though. I’m touched.” He wiped a pretend tear off his face and Kenma sighed. Guess everything was fine then.
They walked out of the locker rooms like that until Kuroo added, “Man, wait till I tell Bokuto about that dating thing though, he’ll find it hilarious,” at which point Kenma had jabbed him in the ribs and walked off while Kuroo stood there for a moment and rubbed his side, mumbling “Ow, that hurt.”
After that, Kenma had felt settled about the whole thing. Maybe he hadn’t really gotten his question answered, but he knew as much as Kuroo did, and that was enough. The gift, then, was somewhat out of left field.
It had been Valentine’s Day, which Kenma was keenly aware of because trying to focus on his game of Pokemon was considerably more difficult than usual thanks to the commotion in class. Most of the guys in the classroom were gathered around the desks near the windows and chattering about who had given them chocolates, while a few of the girls were gathered in groups of two or three and whispering about who they’d given chocolates to.
Kuroo hadn’t stopped by yet, and Kenma figured it was probably because he’d been stopped by some girls on his way over. He showed up a few minutes later though, taking his usual spot in front of Kenma’s desk.
Kenma paused during a dialogue screen and pushed his half-eaten lunch box towards Kuroo before continuing. “Busy day so far, I take it.”
Kuroo picked through the carrots in his lunch box until Kenma pushed over a pair of chopsticks as well. He stuffed some rice in his mouth and said, “You wouldn’ belieb’ it--” swallowed and continued, “-- but it’s nothing unusual. How about you?”
Kenma raised an eyebrow while keeping his eyes on his screen. Kuroo laughed.
“Nothing huh?”
Kenma decided ignoring Kuroo was a sufficient response.
He hadn’t heard anything else from Kuroo besides the sound of him finishing Kenma’s lunch and scraping the sides of the box. Still, the growing commotion in the classroom was throwing off his focus, so he sighed and put his 3DS down for a moment. When he looked up, he saw Kuroo eyeing the DS.
“What?”
Kuroo looked up at him with one corner of his mouth lifted and Kenma couldn’t decide if he had something planned or if that was just his usual smirk.
“Turn around,” Kuroo said. Seemed like it was the former, then.
“Why?”
“Just face the back wall and don’t turn back around until I say, okay?”
A few seconds passed while Kenma considered what trouble Kuroo could possibly cause right behind his back, but eventually he sighed and did as instructed. He heard his DS sliding across his desk and panicked, but then came Kuroo’s voice: “Don’t worry, I won’t break it. Just stay put.”
Kenma glanced at the clock above the cubbies in the back. Lunch period was ending soon.
After another minute or so he heard, “Okay, you can turn around now.” He did as told and looked back at Kuroo, who had that same up-to-no-good smirk on his face. He looked down at his desk, but his DS wasn’t there.
“Where’d my--”
“Tadah!” Said DS was now millimeters away from his nose. When he took it from Kuroo, he noticed the charm hanging off the corner.
“It’s…”
“A cat. A black cat. Cute, right?”
He took a closer look at it. The cat’s eyes were closed into two crescents, giving the impression that it was happily asleep. He looked up and found Kuroo leaning over the back of his chair, mimicking the cat’s expression.
“Is it supposed to look like you?”
“Aww, you think I’m cute?”
Kenma stared.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to say anything. I know your true feelings.” When Kenma wouldn’t let up on his gaze, Kuroo snorted.
“Anyway, I know you don’t really use charms and stuff on your phone or anything but y’know. Maybe it’ll help you remember what I look like when I go off to college and you never see me again.” His mouth set into an exaggerated frown.
Kenma wanted to scoff, but he stopped himself. “It’s not as if you’re dying. And you’re not even moving away.”
“Well, you never know how busy college gets.” Kuroo shrugged.
The charm glinted in the light when he twisted it in his hands. It wasn’t particularly odd for Kuroo to get him things from time to time but Kenma felt, again, that there was something he wasn’t getting. The answer wasn’t in the plastic cat’s lazy smile, though, so he set it down.
Kuroo was looking out the door when Kenma came back from his thoughts. He followed his gaze to a girl he didn’t recognize hovering out in the hall by the doorway with her hands behind her back. She peeked in, noticed Kuroo was looking at her, then abruptly turned in the other direction.
“Well, I’ve stalled as much as I can, but I gotta head back now.” He stood up and headed towards the door, but stopped in the doorframe and waved back at Kenma.
“Thanks for the food, by the way!” he yelled, then he was off.
Kenma looked back at his DS, at the charm hanging off of it. Conversations died down as lunch period ended, and Kenma carefully placed his DS and his lunchbox back into his bag.
Ten, maybe fifteen minutes pass before Kenma realizes he hasn’t actually been playing his DS, just staring at the charm hanging off it. He’s still lying in bed when he should probably be getting started on his homework. He sighs and puts his DS and PSP away. He frowns and maybe slightly blames the girls on the subway for the distraction that cuts into his gaming time, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. He takes his homework out of his bags and thinks that’ll have to wait till later.
On March 13th, Kenma walks home from the station alone. Kuroo normally joins him to do homework more often than not, but today he’d stayed behind at school, saying he needed to meet with a teacher. Kenma had spared a thought of Hope he hasn’t somehow managed to get into trouble so close to Spring High, but he knew Kuroo was smarter than that. He might almost be home free when it came to high school, but he’d never dream of doing something that would get in the way of him playing volleyball.
That’s right, Kenma thinks. Graduation is coming soon. Really soon. For some reason it hasn’t hit him yet, but now he thinks back to a month ago and what Kuroo had said.
He knew Kuroo was joking when he said he’d be too busy to see Kenma, but it seemed weird that he’d brought it up at all. Had it been on his mind already?
And then, well, there had been the gift. It wouldn’t be strange for Kuroo to happen upon a store selling cute cat charms, buy one, and realize maybe Kenma would like it. But why give it to him on Valentine’s Day?
Kenma stops walking. Could it be that Kuroo likes him? His brows furrow. That doesn’t sound right, for some reason. There’s no way he wouldn’t be able to tell.
He tries to compare how Kuroo treats him to how Kuroo treats other people he’s liked that way, and…. comes to a blank. He can’t remember Kuroo ever talking about wanting to date someone. Did he just keep that kind of a thing a secret?
The door of the convenience store he’d stopped in front of slides open, interrupting his thoughts. No one walks out. He looks around, but no one’s walking in either.
Suddenly, he feels a brush of fur against his ankle and looks down. A cat with messy, gray-brown fur pads through the space between his feet, takes a few steps forward, then jumps onto the bench in front of the convenience store. It looks up at Kenma.
Kenma sighs and sits down next to it. He pets it gingerly at first, then gently when it nuzzles its face into his hand. It purrs and its eyes close into two crescents.
Kenma leans back on the bench and is reminded of why he stopped in the first place. Having to think about whether or not someone likes him or he likes them is annoying.
Wait. Whether he likes them. His hand pauses, and the cat nudges at it in response. He continues petting it absentmindedly, and it goes back to purring.
Does he like Kuroo? He tries to think about going on a romantic date at some fancy restaurant, getting all dressed up for it, and his face immediately sours. He tries to imagine himself wanting to kiss Kuroo, and he actually lets out a noise of disgust at that.
The cat looks up at him for a moment, then rests its head back on the bench.
He tries to look at it another way. When he goes off to college, it’ll probably be in Tokyo, so he probably won’t have to move out. But if he does, he wouldn’t mind renting an apartment closer to school with Kuroo to cut costs. Kuroo would probably be willing to do the dishes, since Kenma hated doing them. Neither of them could really cook, but they could order take-out. They had roughly the same tastes when it came to food anyway.
He knows not to bother Kenma when he’s playing a new game, and Kenma knows to peel the pillows away from where he presses them to his head in his sleep before trying to wake him up. Kuroo knows Kenma’s scared of thunderstorms and people with intense auras so he’d probably close the curtains and field awkward conversations for him. And Kenma… well. Kenma knows by now not to make fun of his bedhead.
His face was starting to relax into its usual expression, but suddenly he frowns again. Is that really it? He wonders if this arrangement isn’t a bit one-sided. His hand stills.
The cat seems to decide Kenma can’t be trusted to pet it correctly so it stalks off towards the convenience store entrance again, doors sliding open to let it inside. Kenma watches it and catches the few gachapon machines near the entrance in his line of sight. He walks over and bends down in front of one.
There are three machines: one filled with One Piece figurines, one with food-shaped keychains, and one with cat-related cellphone charms. He stops by the third one, considers it for a moment, then pats his back pockets. Nothing there.
He checks the pockets of his hoodie and the smaller pockets of his book bag before he finally comes across a few 100 yen coins at the bottom of the bag. He fishes them out, pushes two into the machine, and turns the dial.
The machine cranks and a small plastic ball rolls into the compartment at the bottom of the machine. Kenma fishes it out, removes the plastic, and opens it. He frowns when he sees what’s inside. It’s a charm shaped like a cat’s paw print. Cute enough, but not really what he’d been going for.
He pushes his last two coins into the machine and turns the dial again, hoping for the best. This time when he pops open the ball, he sees he’s gotten one of the cat charms. It’s an orange tabby cat sitting up straight with its tail curled behind it. This one will do.
Which is good, because it’s not like he has anymore change anyway. He puts the charms back into their containers, pops them closed, and throws them into his bag. As he slings his bag over his shoulder, the cat from earlier walks through the sliding doors again. It pauses outside the entrance and looks at Kenma. It tilts his head and meows before stalking off, and Kenma wonders why that felt like approval.
The next day goes by calmly, all things considered, though the charms buried at the bottom of his bag seem to weigh down the bag and his thoughts for most of the day. He manages to forget about them during practice, mind and body exhausted from the heightened physical training Coach Nekomata has them doing. He’s had to stay back and toss for each of their players this week, and the effort shows-- the team is syncing up even better than it had before.
Kenma can’t help but feel a bit of pride-- their team is good, after all-- but mostly, he feels tired. The exhaustion makes its way into every muscle in his body and rests there, and on the subway ride home with Kuroo, he doesn’t bother getting his PSP out. He leans against the railing on the edge of his seat, closes his eyes and mutters quietly, “Wake me up when we get there.” He knows Kuroo hears him.
They go to Kenma’s house today, and as soon as they get there Kenma makes a beeline for his bed. He flops with his face buried in the covers and hears Kuroo step into the room and pull out his desk chair. He hears the buzz of his computer being powered on and clacking keyboard keys, and figures Kuroo must be checking Twitter or something.
Breathing into the mattress is getting difficult, so he flips himself over and sits back against his headboard. When he looks over at Kuroo, he sees Kuroo’s actually playing Runescape. Kenma scoffs. Kuroo didn’t really have the patience for most MMORPGs, but every so often he’d return back to his old Runescape account when he felt like destressing. Recently, he’d even managed to rope Lev and Inuoka into making an account.
Kenma digs around in his bag for his PSP when his hand brushes against the charms. He glances over at Kuroo.
He’d been planning to give these to him today, but the moment never really presented itself. He frowned, and hesitated. Why was he making this more difficult than it needed to be?
“Did you need something, or are you just staring at the back of my head for fun?” Kuroo says without turning around.
“Toss me your phone,” Kenma says.
“I thought it was a grandma phone? Didn’t think you were interested,” he says and Kenma can tell he’s smiling. But he looks away from the monitor for a moment to rustle through his bag with one hand and tosses his phone back in Kenma’s direction. He spares a glance over his shoulder, then turns back around and keeps playing.
Kenma takes the opportunity to take both charms out of his bag. He’d removed them from their plastic wrapping, so all he has to do is loop them through the small holes near the hinge of Kuroo’s phone.
When he’s done, he holds the phone up in front of him and turns it in his hands, examining the way the charms fall. Satisfied with his work, he sets the phone down on the bed next to him, leans back against the headboard, and powers on his PSP.
After a couple minutes of playing, he hears his desk chair being pushed back and a moment later he feels the side of his bed sink under Kuroo’s weight. He scoots over to make room, and he feels Kuroo’s arm press against his as he makes himself comfortable next to Kenma.
“Oho? What’s this?” Out of the corner of his eye, Kenma can see Kuroo holding up his phone, letting the charms dangle in front of his face.
“They’re phone charms,” Kenma deadpans.
“Really? I couldn’t tell.” The smile in his voice is more prominent now. “But I meant more what this is for.”
Kenma keeps his eyes glued to his PSP screen. “Well, you got me one a month ago, so. Consider it a White Day gift, I guess,” he mutters. “Your phone looks like it needs them more than my DS does, honestly.”
Of course, Kuroo ignores the jab at his phone and zeroes in on what Kenma hoped to downplay. “Awwww, Kenma. I didn’t take you for a romantic.” He presses into Kenma’s side and Kenma feels a hand messing up his hair. “But isn’t the rule that you’re supposed to give me back three times what I gave you?”
Kenma rolls his eyes. “I ran out of change.”
He expects a response but Kuroo’s silent. He’s hesitant to look over at him, though he doesn’t know why.
After a few seconds, Kuroo leans over and Kenma suddenly feels a pressing weight on top of his head as Kuroo rests his cheek there.
“Your hair’s still wet,” Kuroo says.
“Yeah, well. At least that means I washed it.”
Kuroo laughs and the vibration shakes Kenma’s arm and makes him mess up a move. The monster he had been fighting off gets in a critical attack and his character dies, and Kenma should probably be annoyed but can’t find it in him for some reason.
He feels Kuroo’s breaths slow down and even out as he starts up another game. He’s probably asleep, Kenma thinks, except a moment later he hears:
“Is it cool if I stay here?”
Kenma lets out a sigh, but the corners of his lips rise in a small smile.
“Yeah. It is.”