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“Kenma,” Kuroo said, their mail in his hand.
“What’s up?” Kenma asked, looking up from their bed.
“Unspeakable tribulations to come,” Kuroo said, dramatically acting like he got shot before throwing himself onto the bed, flaying his arms out and letting his mouth hang open.
“Rad,” Kenma said, smiling down at his husband.
Kuroo, eyes still closed, tossed an opened envelope at Kenma. He grabbed it and upon seeing who it was from immediately dropped his smile.
“Fuck,” he said, opening the letter even though he already knew what it said. They had to renew their vehicle permits. It was quite possibly their least favorite thing on the planet. They had to wait in line for sometimes as long as three hours just to hand over a bunch of documents they should be able to send online, pay a ridiculous fee, probably get scolded, all to be handed a tiny sticker for each of their cars. It was the worst.
“Unfortunately,” Kuroo whispered, “I have met my untimely demise, so you have to be the one to do it.”
“Oh, please,” Kenma said, reaching forward to tickle his husband’s ribs. Kuroo scrambled away from the touch but not before letting out an involuntary giggle.
Kuroo narrowed his eyes at Kenma as if judging his intentions before grabbing the laptop out of his lap and replacing it with himself. He looked up at his husband who started brushing the hair out of his eyes.
“Can’t we pay someone to do this?” Kuroo asked.
Kenma paused for a moment, his hand unmoving in Kuroo’s hair.
“I imagine they might have an issue with that,” Kenma pointed out, “But I have a different idea.”
“Mhm?” Kuroo prompted, closing his eyes as Kenma gently scratched his scalp.
“Our permits expire in four months,” Kenma pointed out, “How about we say fuck it and revisit this like two weeks beforehand and then be annoyed that we didn’t do it sooner.”
Kuroo smiled up at him, his eyes still closed, basking in the touch of his husband.
“This is why I love you.”
“Hey guys!” Bokuto’s daughter said, “I want you to meet Eggwin.”
“Do you mean Edwin?” Kuroo asked, his mouth curling into a smile.
Kenma smiled at her as she handed him an egg with a crooked smilie face drawn on. It had yarn taped to it in an imitation of hair.
“Nice to meet you, Eggwin,” he said, handing his husband the egg.
“Hello Eggwin,” Kuroo said, handing the egg back to her.
“Eggwin is for my class. We have to go a whole week without breaking him!” she explained, “My friend broke his like soon after we got them!”
“How silly,” Kuroo said, his eyes widening, “Are you going to break Eggwin?”
“I would never hurt Eggwin!” she exclaimed, “Right, Daddy?”
They all looked over at Bokuto who was making his way over with drinks for them all. He shook his head with a smile on his face.
“I see you’ve all met Eggwin,” he said, setting the drinks on the table.
“So, uh, what is his purpose?” Kenma asked, eyeing the egg that was sat dangerously close to the edge of the table.
“They’re learning responsibility in class,” Bokuto said with a laugh, “Right, little one?”
He sat down and then pulled her onto his lap, handing her the juice pouch he grabbed for her.
“Right!” she said with a huge smile, “I’m going to be the best egg mom ever!”
“Hey, sugar,” Kuroo said, popping into the front room clad in an apron, spatula in hand, “Do you want cheese in your omelette?”
“Yes please,” Kenma said, wishing he bought a smaller apron so he could see more of his husband’s bare chest, “I would love cheese on the liquified and cooked remains of my Eggwins.”
Kuroo snorted, walking back into the kitchen to abide by that request. Kenma was planning on getting some work done, but he decided he’d rather spend the morning with his husband, so he decisively shut his laptop and walked into the kitchen.
The first thing he did there was smack his husband’s ass. The second was go into the fridge and grab two eggs, and set them on the counter.
“I could totally beat a six year old at this,” Kenma said, cracking his knuckles.
“But could you beat me?” Kuroo asked, starting in on his own omelette.
“Of course I could,” Kenma said, waving him off, “I would be the best Eggwin mom.”
“But you’re an uncoordinated mess,” Kuroo pointed out.
“It’s an egg,” Kenma countered, “How hard can it be?”
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this-“ Kuroo started.
“I bet I can keep an egg from breaking longer than you,” Kenma finished with a deeply amused smile on his face.
“We’re about to take on a child’s homework,” Kuroo said with an incredulous laugh.
“And we’re going to absolutely crush it.”
“The point is not to crush it,” Kuroo said, nodding to the cabinet, “Can you grab me plates?”
Kenma rolled his eyes at the joke but grabbed the plates regardless, handing them to his husband.
“You know,” Kenma said, “I think we solved our vehicle permit issue.”
“Oh, you’re so on.”
Kuroo handed his husband his omelette and they sat at the table together, enjoying the morning in comfortable silence, Kenma’s free hand in Kuroo’s lap.
“Plans for the day?” Kenma asked, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I’m probably going to try to set up volleyball practice with the boys,” Kuroo said, squeezing Kenma’s thigh, “We have a game next week.”
“Fun,” Kenma said, “Y’all do need the practice.”
“Oh, shut up,” Kuroo said, flicking him, “We’re almost as good as the kids from the college team.”
“Sure you are,” Kenma said with a patronizing nod, “By the way, I’m planning on running errands downtown. Keep me updated.”
Kuroo shot him a quick look before he could think better of it. He was in a good mood and didn’t want to bicker about it. Kenma had been bothering him about making sure to text him where he was and when he’d be coming back. Kuroo’s main issue with the request was that he simply never remembered to do it, but he also didn’t really understand the insistence. He was only ever gone for a few hours. It wasn’t like he was fucking off for a whole weekend without texting his husband.
“Okay.”
“Hey love, I’m home,” Kuroo called.
Kenma didn’t get up and greet him at the door as he usually did. He just stared at Kuroo who was taking off his jacket in the foyer.
“Okay,” Kenma said, breaking the eye contact and pulling out his handheld.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, making his way over to his husband. He sat on the ottoman facing Kenma.
“You’re home late,” Kenma said, plainly.
“Correct, and?” he asked, setting his hand on Kenma’s thigh.
“Again.”
“Yeah, I decided to go with some coworkers for dinner,” he said.
“Mhm,” Kenma hummed, moving Kuroo’s hand off of his leg without looking at him.
“So what’s your problem?” Kuroo asked, crossing his arms.
“God, never mind,” Kenma said, “I cooked up some fish for you for dinner. It’s probably cold now since it’s been on the counter for so long.”
“No, what’s going on?” Kuroo asked, “Are you mad you actually cooked for once and I didn’t get to eat it?”
“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’, “You didn’t tell me where you were or how long you were going to be out. Again.”
Kuroo stared at him in silence for a second, listening to the sound effects from the game Kenma was playing. He then swiped it from Kenma’s hands and made a show of turning it off. Kenma immediately lunged for it, anger in his expression.
“If you’re going to accuse me of cheating, look me in the eyes and say it like a man.”
“Go fuck yourself. That’s not my problem,” Kenma said, a look of disgust on his face. He got up, sidestepping Kuroo and walked to the kitchen. Kuroo immediately followed.
“Not sure how the fuck I’m supposed to know what your problem is if you won’t talk to me like an adult.”
“I have,” Kenma said, his voice raising, “I have multiple times asked you to just fucking tell me where you are and how long you think you’ll be gone. That’s all I ask. That’s all I want and yet ‘oops I’m home four hours after work ended’.”
He started cleaning up from his dinner prep. Tossing dishes in the sink with a clamor.
“I’m a grown ass man, Kenma,” he said, crossing his arms once more. Kenma’s eyes flicked to his handheld in Kuroo’s pocket.
“Okay, once again, since we literally argued about this not seven days ago,” he said, taking out a leftover container, “I am not trying to control you. I want to know you’re safe so I don’t worry or know what to do for dinner or maybe, just maybe, has it occurred to you that I’m interested in hearing about your day?”
“You’re my husband, not my mom!” Kuroo yelled, throwing his hands up.
“Oh my fucking god, Tetsurou,” Kenma said, hand on hip, taking a short break from scraping pots into the garbage, “For the last fucking time, I’m not asking so I can boss you around. I’m asking so-“
“So you know when to ground me if I’m out with friends past curfew?” Kuroo asked, walking closer to his husband.
Kenma stared at him, dead in the eyes, and dumped the rest of the dinner from the leftover container into the trash and kicked it closed.
“Oh, real mature,” Kuroo spit.
“My property is in your pocket that you ripped from my hands without warning and are holding it hostage,” Kenma pointed out, his voice low, “Maybe you’re the one acting like a mom today.”
“Your property,” Kuroo scoffed, “I’m not the one punishing you for inane things.”
“I’m going to bed,” Kenma said, washing his hands before turning to walk past his husband, “We can discuss this in the morning. It’s a good thing I just cleaned the sheets so the guest bedroom will be ready for you.”
“Oh, so I’m a guest in my own house now?” Kuroo asked, “Can you offer me a drink? Perhaps a tour?”
“Goddamnit,” Kenma snapped, turning around, “Maybe you do need a mother since you seem to be insistent on acting like a child right now.”
The hurt immediately flashed in Kuroo’s eyes and Kenma realized what exactly he’d just said.
“Are you kidding me?” Kuroo asked, “Let me go get Mom then. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen her. Oh, only like thirty years since I’ve seen her in person and one since I laid flowers at her grave.”
“I didn’t mean it like-“
“So, why is it that you overthink every single social interaction, exactly what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it, except when you’re talking to me where you can apparently say whatever you want no matter how much of a dick thing to say it is?” Kuroo asked, “Why is that? Huh?”
Kenma gritted his teeth, “I told you. I’m tired. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean you’re acting like a child right now,” Kenma said, turning to go up to their bedroom.
“Have you considered that’s because you’re treating me like one?” Kuroo asked, following him up the stairs.
“Yeah,” Kenma said, walking into their room, “God forbid I care about my husband’s safety. I’m so overbearing.”
“It’s not just that,” Kuroo said, “I come home and all you do is be curt with me instead of talking to me like an adult.”
“Because you came at me!”
“Because you’re being insane lately,” Kuroo said, “And instead of apologizing about it, you just double down.”
“You’re right,” Kenma said, his eyes darkening, “There’s no need to double down when I can triple down.”
He slammed the door shut, Kuroo trapped on the other side and locked it much louder than necessary.
Kenma woke up to discover that there was nobody in his bed for him to spend his early Saturday morning cuddling with. He blinked a few times as he remembered the argument from the night before and sighed. He had to go talk to his husband.
As he lazily got up to at the very least make coffee in preparation for the conversation, he quickly realized that his husband wasn’t only absent from his bed, but apparently from the entire house.
His first reaction was to be angry that Kuroo had once again fucked off with Kenma having exactly no idea where he went, but then he realized he hadn’t checked his phone since he woke up. He tossed a pod in the coffee maker, pressed start, and wandered back upstairs to find his phone.
Checking his texts took a lot longer than intended. In his anger from the night before, he didn’t charge his phone, so he had to sit there, awkwardly looking at himself in the reflection of the screen, waiting for it to boot back up. He briefly glanced over at the two eggs sitting on the end table. Kuroo had drawn hair and faces on each of them, making Kenma’s have hair like Kuroo, and Kuroo’s having hair like Kenma. In the moment, he thought it was sweet, even though he wasn’t about to admit it, but now it just made him angry. He wanted to smash Kuroo’s egg, to force him to go to the government building and have to wait as a punishment for being such an asshole.
Finally, when his phone turned back on, he jammed in his password and pulled open his messages. There were no texts nor calls from his husband. He saw red and felt his pulse in his finger tips.
He stormed downstairs to his coffee, where he drank it all too fast, firing texts at his husband. He was immediately surprised to hear Kuroo’s phone ring. He turned around to see in on the table which only lead him to seethe even more as he brewed another coffee. When the door opened, he immediately pounced, quickly going from the kitchen to the foyer.
“Really?” Kenma asked, his voice already a pinch more aggressive than his speaking voice, “Really?“
“What now?” Kuroo asked, kicking off his shoes.
“Really? You just fuck out of the house and don’t text, again?” Kenma asked, “There’s no reason to be an asshole!”
“Oh my god, chill the fuck out,” Kuroo said, pulling his sweater off, “I was out for a jog for god’s sake.”
“Of course you were,” Kenma said, crossing his arms.
“I literally was, but okay,” Kuroo said, throwing his arms up and walking around Kenma into the kitchen.
“We literally just yelled about letting each other know where we are and you choose to not bother text?” Kenma asked, coldly.
“Nope, we talked about me letting you know where I am,” Kuroo pointed out, “I didn’t think to text that I was out jogging because that’s ridiculous.”
“Okay, but how am I possibly supposed to know that’s where you are?”
“You aren’t,” Kuroo said, exasperated, “I was gone for less than a half hour. I do not see the issue.”
“The issue is that I wouldn’t know it’s less than a half hour.”
“Okay but you’d find that out in-“ Kuroo said, dramatically flicking his wrist to reveal his watch, “Less than thirty minutes. I don’t see why I need to tell you what’s going on every single moment of my day.”
“You don’t,” Kenma pointed out, “Just send me a quick text or write a note saying you’re out and coming back in however long. I feel like that’s not too much to ask.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Kuroo said, “I’m a grown up and I don’t want to have to constantly check in with you because you’re insecure.”
“I’m not insecure,” Kenma said, anger flaming in his stomach, “I just want to fucking know where you are so I know you’re okay and when to expect to see you next. That’s fucking it.”
“I’m going to go to the bathroom now,” Kuroo said, petulantly, “I’m going to pee and then take a shower. It’ll take anywhere between six and thirty minutes. Unfortunately, I’m not sure. I can text you when I stop peeing and enter the shower.”
“God, never mind,” Kenma said, waving him off, “Maybe I’d rather you not talking to me.”
“Oh, that can be arranged.”
Their period of not talking to each other didn’t last forever, but it was mostly the bare essentials of talking, things like ‘good morning’, ‘am I making dinner for two’, and ‘keys are on the counter’. They certainly weren’t even close to being back to normal and the main issue was simply that they both refused to budge.
Kenma felt a moment of hope when he saw his husband come back inside. He was sure Kuroo had changed his mind about stubbornly going into the office and was going to offer a truce, but instead, he walked past Kenma into the back of the kitchen and grabbed his egg that was sitting on the counter.
“Forgot Eggwin,” Kuroo said, unnecessarily, as he walked back out of the house and into his car.
Kenma frowned deeply, rhythmically rolling his own egg back and forth across the table. He was hoping Kuroo would just swallow his pride and admit he was being unreasonable. This wasn’t the most emotionally involved argument they’d ever had, but it was certainly the longest that one had ever lasted. It had been days since the initial argument and they still weren’t on speaking terms or even sleeping in the same bedroom and he hated it. Kenma didn’t mind the fact that every once in a blue moon they butted heads- it was a natural part of relationships, especially for a couple as confrontational as they were- but this was a small crack that became a chasm and that worried him.
He was technically drafting an agenda for his next meeting, but his mind was on something entirely else. He had to find a way to bring this up to Kuroo without just saying it was okay and to forget about it because it wasn’t. It mattered to Kenma that Kuroo wouldn’t take a single second just to let him know what the plan was, but at the same time, it looked like Kuroo wasn’t planning on budging. He really didn’t know what to do.
Kuroo was frozen, egg in hand. He’d just gotten a text from his husband saying that he going out that night once he clocked out and wouldn’t be home until late. It upset him. He wanted to talk to Kenma, to make amends. He didn’t want to be fighting anymore. He just wanted Kenma.
So he knew what he had to do.
“Sorry,” he said, audibly, and then felt ridiculous as he was talking to an egg. He threw it hard against the inside edge of his trash can. It cracked and oozed down onto the stack of discarded papers he’d previously thrown in there.
He’d realized the crux of the argument that morning and since then he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He thought back to when they were in college and any time they went on a trip together, Kenma would send a quick text to his family groupchat letting them know where he was off to. Kuroo found it ridiculous. It wasn’t like they were going to stop him from getting hurt and his own father would be happy to see his son once a year.
That was the issue. Sending that text, that quick check in was something that was natural to Kenma. He’d been doing it since he was a kid so of course he didn’t see it as overbearing, and as for Kuroo, he’d never done anything like that growing up so it was a novel change.
The two of them spent days fighting, yelling, and apart all because of a minor difference in how they were raised. Kuroo shook his head. They were better than that, or at least they were supposed to be.
Kuroo stretched his back, and took a sip of his fancy coffee as he walked into the crowded building. As expected, it was packed to the gills. It was surely going to be at least two hours in line. He wondered extensively why this couldn’t be done virtually or by appointment.
He checked no less than six times in twenty minutes that he had all of the requisite forms. He had them all, which he knew he would, but what he didn’t have was his headphones. He bounced up and down, debating whether or not he should just go home. He didn’t really want to wait in silence, but he decided to hold firm in his decision. He would renew their permits, go home, and apologize. That was the plan.
He occupied his time by looking around at all of the signs and people around him. He practically memorized the different requirements for all of the permits, even ones he would never even remotely need, as listed on the signs.
About halfway into his wait, he noticed a small ruckus approximately thirty people in front of him. There was laughter and pictures being taken. He sidestepped the line to attempt to get a better view and his jaw hit the floor when he saw was going on: some fans were asking the Kodzuken for an autograph.
He was about to say something when he saw his husband look up at him in disbelief. Kenma quickly signed something one of the men was holding and then went back through the line to stand next to Kuroo.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Kenma said, his head cocked to the side.
“Yeah,” Kuroo said, scratching the back of his neck, “You too.”
“I have a confession to make,” Kenma said, reaching down into his bag, “I didn’t actually break my egg, but I wanted an olive branch. I missed you.”
He pulled out a blue plastic water bottle with nothing but an egg inside and showed it to Kuroo.
“I-,” Kuroo started, immediately choked up, “I broke mine on purpose so I could try to make it up to you.”
“This is probably the wrong place to talk about this,” Kenma said, “But I-“
“I’m sorry that I always forget to text you,” Kuroo interrupted, “I’ve never really done that before or even understood why people do it, but I get it now. I promise I’ll make an effort to let you know where I’m at and when I’ll be back.”
“Yeah, and I’m sorry that I just escalated things,” Kenma said with a frown, “This didn’t have to be a whole thing.”
“We’ll do better next time,” Kuroo said.
“You’re right.”
Then Kenma, who was always so careful about avoiding public displays of affection, slid his hand into Kuroo’s, lacing their fingers together. Kuroo squeezed his hand with a smile.
“Are we good now?” he asked.
“We’re good,” Kenma confirmed.