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“Don’t say ‘I told you so’.”
Kuroo’s laugher is soft in the small room but it still sounds condescending in the way that makes Kenma’s skin feel hot and his toes curl in his combat boots.
“But I did” another chuckle “I told you to bring your puffer jacket.”
Kenma scoffs but he doesn’t reply, considering how quickly Kuroo shrugged off his coat in the middle of the storm to drape it over Kenma’s shoulders, keeping a reassuring hand on his back, by the waist, as they made their way through town under the unrelenting rain. Attempting to refuse the coat would not have worked so now they are both drenched.
“Get those clothes off, you are soaked.” hurries to say Kenma, dragging his gaze away from Kuroo’s muscular forearms where his white shirt sticks to his skin.
As much as Kuroo hanging around his flat shirtless, damp skin glowing under the streetlight ploughing through the window, sounds slightly like a punishment as the image will be embedded in his memories forever, he’d rather avoid Kuroo getting sick.
They are both at risk, actually, dripping all over his wooden floor as the wind howls outside, so he walks to his bedroom and realizes quickly, opening his wardrobe, that none of his clothes will ever fit Kuroo.
That’s when he hears it, the sound of Kuroo’s clothes hitting his floor.
It breaks the silence neatly, as if to ensure Kenma knows he won’t be the same after hearing that. His skin feels suddenly tight and uncomfortably warm because hasn’t he wanted to hear that for the longest time? Hasn’t he envisioned this for years and years?
But now that he has it, it’s a mocking, fake version of what he longed for and the realization that Kuroo will be walking around in his underwear for half an hour seems less manageable and more overwhelming by the second, with his heart fluttering helplessly against his ribcage. It sounds oddly both like a fantasy and a nightmare, knowing his fingers will be itching and aching at the joints to reach out and touch because he wants, he wants, he wants.
He takes a deep breath, turning around towards the doorframe to look at Kuroo in the living room only to find that he has silently walked in and curled up under Kenma’s duvet, shivering slightly.
In his bed.
“What are you doing?” he aims to sound irritated but ends up breathless, seeing Kuroo nonchalantly resting his back against his headboard with a dorky yet inexplicably charming smile.
He is unaware, he thinks desperately, of the effect his actions have and therefore guiltless. It makes him want to crumble to the floor and scream with how unfair it is, that the one to be blamed for this hurt in the end is only himself.
“I was freezing and there’s nothing you can give me that might fit me-“
The most infuriating part is that it sounds reasonable, but Kenma has to let out his frustration in some way.
“Because you are a tree and not a person-“
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that” mumbles Kuroo with a tiny amused smile, tipping his head backwards, resting it against his wall above the headboard.
It leaves Kenma with nothing to do but stare at the column of his throat, his Adam apple, his sharp clavicles and broad shoulders in the dim light of his room like a chiaroscuro. Kuroo is unknowingly showing all the dips and curves Kenma has already committed to memory, longing to learn them with the tips of his fingers too, the lines that he wants to worship sinking to his knees until his perception of everything slips away and there’s nothing but Kuroo for him.
God, he is doomed.
“Nothing can fit me, so I decided using your duvet was my best option.”
Kuroo pouts and it shouldn’t look as endearing as it does, the frown and dark eyebrows knitted together, on a shirtless, tall, handsome man like him but it does and Kenma’s heart trembles with painful fondness. Only then Kenma notices Kuroo is actually shivering slightly, shoulders shaking, and distracting him with his rambling, never one to voice his own needs but looking out constantly for others.
He sighs.
He thinks that there’s no way it can get worse than how it is and he can’t bear to have Kuroo catching a cold because he gallantly gave him his coat.
“Make some space for me.” he grumbles, resting his knee on the edge of the mattress.
It dips under his weight and he feels a shiver run down his spine when Kuroo looks up at him, head casually abandoned against the headboard, his chin tipped upwards. His watchful silver gaze, bright in the dimness of the room, slides over Kenma’s frame flashing like lightning, somewhat heavy with both eyes for once visible due to his slicked back hair, still damp because of the rain.
Kuroo’s chiseled, hard features, his sharp cheekbones, clenched jaw, are bare, no longer hidden by his fringe, but they are softened by the delicate blush of pink on his cheeks. In the black and white light of the room, his cherry red cheeks and parted lips stand out, dangerously enticing, to the point that Kenma needs to take a deep breath before talking again.
“Make space, we can share some warmth, c’mon,” he sighs, when Kuroo rolls over “it’s hardly the first time we’ve done this.”
Kuroo nods into the pillow and the sound of the fabric rustling against the first hint of stubble on his chin makes Kenma’s heartbeat so fast Kuroo might hear it in the safe silence of the room, as the storm rages outside.
“We were kids though.” murmurs Kuroo with that boyish smile that makes him feel like the air is charged with electricity.
They were, thinks Kenma, and everything has changed since then because of him, because of the insufferable and staggering feelings blossoming in his chest, roses wrapping around his heart and piercing it with thorns.
“Yeah… whatever.” he tries desperately to sound unaffected, as if the fondness in Kuroo’s tone mentioning easier times, when they would curl under a blanket and fit on Kenma’s parents couch, doesn’t feed his illusions of those moments meaning to him as much as they mean to Kenma.
Maybe they did, but differently. The moments spent with Kenma at his house were the only few hours of real childhood Kuroo ever experienced, a safe haven that he surely treasures, just not the way Kenma does. It’s different and it’s fine, but it makes his heart ache.
“Are you suggesting” Kuroo’s smirk is smug now, stretching on his lips dangerously, making Kenma’s breath hitch, which should definitely be enough of a warning. Kenma should retreat. Hide in the bathroom with shame and guilt heavy on his chest and bang his head against the wall.
“-that we” Kuroo continues, sliding closer until his lips are next to Kenma’s ear “cuddle?”
Kuroo is so obnoxious that he says it in a whisper, like it’s something scandalous and while it’s meant to make Kenma laugh, maybe noticing how tense he is, it just makes him wonder what it would feel like to hear Kuroo say actual filthy things, whisper all of them directly in the shell of Kenma's ear in a hurried, frantic tone.
He exhales slowly when he realises he has been holding his breath this whole time, shrugging.
“Shut up.” he murmurs, cheeks warm, carefully avoiding eye contact. He pokes Kuroo in the side until he rolls on his back with a chuckle, so he can curl up on his chest, shivering at the contact of his cheek with the cool bare skin.
“We can take a nap. It’s not like we have anywhere to be,” he looks up at Kuroo, already feeling himself blink slower, and he thinks he hears him gasp, eyes shining with something Kenma can’t recognize, “right?”
What a fantasy, sharing a lazy gloomy day under the covers with Kuroo, in his embrace like they are lovers, he thinks bitterly, staring at how naturally Kuroo fits in his room, his inky dark hair on his pillow.
It will leave him sobbing in that same pillow tomorrow night, alone in his small bed, pulling at his hair, the fact that he got so close to everything he wished for and will never have.
Kuroo’s expression softens and his fingers comb through Kenma’s hair gently, as if sensing something is upsetting him.
He is unaware, thinks Kenma again, he can’t be mad at him if his heart hurts but it truly is a tragedy that Kuroo is so considerate and so kind because hating him might have made things a little easier, instead he’s just plagued by suffocating, unbearable guilt.
“Of course.”
He rests his chin on Kenma’s head and he draws little circles on his hoodie with the tip of his thumb, unaware that each touch leaves trails of fire that seep through, reaching Kenma’s skin, sinking in his bones.
Silence falls and their breathing slows down, the only sound in the room apart from the rhythmic tapping of the rain on the windows and roof, like a lullaby. Then, Kuroo speaks again, probably thinking Kenma is asleep already because he sounds too soft, too fond for it to mean anything other than Kenma’s feelings being required. Like a prayer, a secret, a plea.
“It’s not like I’d rather be anywhere else.” he murmurs fondly, leaving a trembling kiss on Kenma’s hair.
At that, his heart skips a beat, the flames consuming him desperately finally turning into a soothing warmth. The revelation makes his head spin and he bites his lip to hide a smile.
When they'll wake up, he might kiss him, he thinks.
Not now, though. Now they rest.