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Lev made big entrances. He’s shown up to practice with stray cats, a giant bump on his head (which he somehow hadn’t noticed) from knocking into the doorway while leaving his house, and when he didn’t have anything shocking to show the team upon arrival he’d surely announce himself loudly. Sometimes Kenma wondered if Lev had ever heard of ‘indoor voices’.
He also didn’t seem to notice that everyone stopping and looking when he came in meant that he was disrupting practice. Well, everyone stopping and looking besides Kenma, because he often didn’t have much to ‘stop’ doing during morning practice and he was accustomed enough to his teammate’s ways of proclaiming himself to ignore it. No one had the heart to tell him to stop, however. Such was the softness Nekoma had for their newest teammate. It became part of the routine, the practice not really getting going until Lev came in with whatever mess he’d gotten himself into by six-thirty a.m.
But eventually Lev’s grand entrances stopped because Kuroo told him if he didn’t do extra practice he couldn’t keep his spot as a regular. So instead Lev would show up an hour before everyone else besides Kuroo and Kenma and Kenma would send him hopeless spikes and have his arms be tired before practice even started.
And he’d thought that was the end of Lev’s cats and Yaku spending the morning on first aid, but Lev’s house was closer to Nekoma than his so once Lev’s sleeping schedule adjusted he was getting there before Kenma.
Which brings us to Lev’s emphatic greetings.
The first day Lev got there first was about a week after he’d started early practice. Kenma was surprised to see him there and actually paused his game (he was only a few feet away anyway.) Lev was sitting on the steps, sending him big waves like he was half-blind or a hundred feet away. He waved back a bit.
When Kenma got to the gym, of all things at that ungodly hour of the morning, he wasn’t expecting Lev to wrap his arms around his waist and lift him off his feet a couple inches and give him the tightest, most breath-taking (not in a good way) hug of his life.
“Good morning, Kenma!”
He coughed a couple times (and maybe blinked back a few tears), before saying, “I think you broke my ribs.”
“Can you still send me spikes?” Lev looked slightly worried over the idea of not having a setter. Maybe he was worried over breaking his setter too, but Kenma wasn’t sure about that one yet.
“I’m alright.” He unlocked the door and him and Kuroo and Lev all walked in, his friend jokingly saying from behind them, “Kenma gets a hug and I don’t?”
Lev answered back without a moment of hesitation, “It’s not cute with you!”
He knew Lev had just kind of called him cute -- or at least called hugging him cute -- but so many random thoughts came out of that kid’s mouth at every moment he didn’t even give it a thought.
Maybe he should have.
Because some days, Lev would ruffle Kenma’s hair or give him a pat on the back when he showed up for practice. Most of the time, he’d give Kenma another crushing hug.
But today was neither of those days.
He sometimes tried to think about when he’d first developed this crush on his overly energetic friend. The crush he insisted was very small even though when Lev took his wrist to show him a ladybug he’d noticed on the sidewalk he felt his insides dying. Sometimes Kuroo teased him for it but he didn’t have the energy to lie and deny it, or the shame. Lev was a good person anyway, he was a bit much but he was fun for Kenma to be around even though he didn’t admit it, and maybe he was even a little cute too? Although he tried not to think those thoughts because when he did it was like he got put in the oven.
Baby crush. Barely existent crush.
Maybe it’d first begun around when Lev had started early practice. Definitely not before then -- but definitely after. After all, they hadn’t spent that much time together before. And an hour of just them and Kuroo five days a week was enough to get a crush pretty fast. It’d been almost two months since then, and it’d only gotten more apparent with time.
Not that he was going to do anything about it, though. Not that he thought he wanted to. Not that his crush was big enough to need to confess.
Which he wasn’t thinking about as he got to practice. Really. He hardly thought about it, Kenma wasn’t much of a feelings person. There wasn’t any tension or hardly-suppressed feelings or the hidden sadness of pining when he walked to school. What happened was really out the blue, not like the climax of that shoujo manga he’d just finished.
And he was used to the hugs. Don’t tell anyone, but he didn’t even mind them. Actually, once he initiated a hug with Lev, when they were leaving and Kuroo was sick so it was just the two of them outside.
That was yesterday.
Maybe if he’d paid more attention and took into account Lev’s personality, he would have expected the whole ordeal. But Kuroo was still sick and as he walked to the doors of the gym, alone (though he doubted Lev would’ve cared if Kuroo saw or not) and Lev spotted him his eyes just got so wide. A bit weird. Maybe he’d tried coffee that morning -- the idea of Lev on caffeine sent a shiver down his spine.
All was well and good and normal as he said the usual “Good morning” and those arms wrapped around his waist like usual. But then he was kissing Lev.
...Who’d clearly never tried kissing before, not that he was any different. His lips were puckered out the most he could, his eyes were closed so tight it was laughable. And then it was over and he was staring straight ahead at Lev‘s chest.
He cleared his throat.
“Was that alright, Kenma? Did you like it?” When he looked up and met his eyes Lev was blushing a lot, his eyebrows furrowed, his bony fingers tapping against his legs. He was actually… nervous.
“Lev,” was all he could say. He wasn’t really one for words. All he could do was cover his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry! After yesterday, I thought -- I thought you must like me, you know? After you hugged me, because hugging you was my way of telling you I like you, and you’re so smart I thought you’d figured it all out a long time ago!”
“Lev.”
His chest pounded and he could feel it in his head and arms and stomach. He was so embarrassed.
“Lev.”
“Yes, Kenma?” His voice wavered a bit.
Very quietly, he mumbled, “Again.”