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There were a lot of things that people didn't know about Kuroo Tetsurou. As opposed to his friendly, outgoing personality on the court, he was actually very private. He could count on one hand the number of people that actually saw what was beneath his cocky facade.
Of that handful, only three knew that he had trouble sleeping.
It wasn't a rare instance either. It was a constant, ever since middle school. His mother and his doctor didn’t even know the cause, but he still ended up with a little bottle of prescription pills on his nightstand, and a big, fat elephant of a secret.
He tried to take the things as infrequently as humanly possible. The less he took them the less people would catch on, or so he told himself. The fewer people that caught on meant less people to know his weaknesses. Yeah, okay, so it was mostly his pride. Pride kept the secret carved into exactly three brains and he wasn't about to whittle it into any more.
It wasn't that he didn't think he needed the pills. He was prideful, maybe, but not stupid. They weren't supposed to be a nightly solution, but worse was that he absolutely hated the way they made him feel.
In other words, they worked, but also sucked.
He never felt refreshed or rested the morning after. It was like dropping a pile of bricks behind his eyelids to keep them shut at night and he often woke up with the sensation that he'd popped up straight out of a nightmare, despite never remembering any dreams. The side effects were bad, but they weren't so bad that he felt it was worth submitting himself to an onslaught of chemical trials to try and change them. So instead he supplemented the awful pills with meditation and coping mechanisms.
Kenma, one of the oh-so-unlucky three, was always a kind enough soul to steer outsider conversations away from his nightly struggles, and it helped. A lot.
After high school, when Tetsurou had started living on his own, the insomnia had gotten substantially, and immediately, worse. The stress of a new place? Being on his own for the first time, maybe? Whatever it was, it had been bad. His grades had started a steady decline, teetering on the edge of failing. The logical thing was to reconsider his situation, so he did.
It was one of the main driving factors that led him to end up blurting his intentions to Kenma the day of the younger man's graduation. He'd asked his best friend and shameless crush to move in with him before the ceremony even began, pretending to ignore the wide eyes he saw so vividly in his peripherals. The look slowly leveled into understanding, because of course, Kenma understood. The upside (and sometimes downside) of knowing each other their entire lives was just that. There was a novel of reasons in that one suggestion and paired with the look across Tetsurou's face, a response was unnecessary.
Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact he missed his childhood friend. Or maybe that they'd danced around each other for years. Nope, nothing at all.
Two weeks after graduation, Kenma had picked out a new apartment near the college campus, one with two bedrooms. One where they (mostly Kenma) could stay up all night playing video games and one that could be shuttered up for sleeping, even if the sun started to rise.
And it helped. Just having Kenma in the same apartment reduced the frequency of Tetsurou's sleepless nights. Now, most of the time he could forego the prescription and instead fall back on the three step method of inducing sleep that he'd come up with in high school.
The process was simple.
Step one: run for at least an hour, then cool down for twenty minutes before bed. He was an athlete so no one really questioned the fact Tetsurou was lapping the neighborhood well after night fell.
Step two: close the room up tight so no sounds, lights or vibrations could possibly distract his senses. This included his infamous habit of smashing his head between two pillows and lying face down. Most people didn't know insomnia was his reason for this, they just thought he was weird or eccentric. He let them think whatever they wanted. It was honestly less embarrassing than the truth in his mind.
And lastly, step three: think of the last class he had a test or quiz in and recite the questions and answers as far as he could clearly recall. Maybe it seemed like an odd way to calm down his brain, but it usually worked. And working was all he needed it to do.
Tonight, though.
Tonight, it wasn't working. Not at all.
He shifted his head and his eyes snapped open in the darkness, though he couldn't see anything. Tetsurou rolled onto his back to continue staring into the pitch of the room around him. He pushed an arm behind his head and let his pillows fall off to the side.
It was no good. The numbers were a jumble in his skull and every attempt to untangle the equations pulled him a step back, then another, until sleep was beyond the horizon of his mind's eye. He released a long breath and sat up, reaching for the digital clock, which he had thrown his shirt over earlier that day.
Just past three, huh? Even Kenma would have crashed by now. Another sigh and Tetsurou pushed himself out of bed, pulling that same shirt over his head as his heels hit solid ground. The red numbers on the clock had illuminated enough of the room to be bothersome, but since he was getting up anyway, so why even be irritated about it?
Maybe he needed a reset. A drink of water and a few minutes of pacing. And if that didn't work, he'd take the pills.
He kicked at the blanket rolled up at the edge of the door, pausing only when a sliver of light peeked in from below. Had they left on a light? Maybe, but Kenma knew how picky Tetsurou was about his sleeping conditions, so it was highly unlikely. He could have spiraled, let his imagination fabricate hundreds of potential scenarios, but he was smarter than that.
The simplest answer was often the correct one, after all.
With lips drawn tight, Tetsurou lowered the lever handle and pulled the door open. The light was not as sharp and bright as it had initially seemed. It was just the dim glow of their kitchenette, at the far side of the open common room. Separated from full view by the half peninsula countertop, was a familiar figure, hunched in a perfect personification of stress and fatigue.
It wasn't abnormal for Kenma to take on such a pose, but it had been a while since Tetsurou had seen his shoulders dipped so low. He let out a low breath and padded with bare feet towards the kitchen to flip on the main light. Any hope of a quick reset had been shattered when Tetsurou saw such overwhelm in his boyfriend's silhouette. Stress was like him, but this was a different level.
"Ken?"
He didn't get a response, but then again, Tetsurou wasn't really expecting a response. Through what he couldn't hear, he was catching a faint whiff of something sweet. Sweet and familiar, like autumn evenings with Kenma's grandparents, or in high school on the very late nights at the local diner after a rough practice, when all the other guys had already gone home and it was just the two of them.
Yeah, that's what it was. It was the smell of comfort. Tetsurou let out a humm and took the few steps that would transport him from the common room into the kitchenette where he could finally see the dangling of his boyfriend's legs and the plain ceramic plate.
In Kenma's other hand was something that resembled an apple pie, or at least the filling did. It looked suspiciously like one of those handheld pies from the convenience store.
"Kenma, did you heat up one of those pies from the konbini down the street?" He'd already announced his presence, so Tetsurou didn't see any reason to stay quiet.
There was a flat breath and a low tone in response, though Kenma didn't look up. "It's too late for the bakery to be open so it's the only place within walking distance."
Kenma had been out, walking in the middle of the night? Whatever was going on had to be serious. Tetsurou moved over to lean against the counter beside the solemn man, crossing his arms. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Could ask the same of you." Came the monotone retort.
"Yeah, but we've gone down that path." Tetsurou bit the inside of his lip to chase back that hollow gut feeling that so often came with his bouts of insomnia. Kenma knew better than anyone how he felt about discussing it. He was trying to divert attention, plain and simple. "You usually stay up by choice, which means that something's up."
The sigh was low this time and Kenma's posture drooped impossibly lower. "It doesn't matter. Not really." The following shrug was like trying to shoulder off a fallen building.
"Is this… stubborn? This what is like when you're stubborn?" And Tetsurou laughed, eliciting the response he was looking for, finally. Golden eyes flicked up and Tetsurou caught them, smoothing his lips into a soft smile. "Come on, babe. You were with me through all my crap. Let me at least try to be there for yours."
Kenma stared down at his plate as if contemplating the universe in his half eaten hand pie. Moments stretched to minutes, but Tetsurou remained patient. He honestly didn't have enough clarity to be bothered, anyway.
"It's tomorrow's livestream." Without the silence of the room around them Tetsurou never may have heard the comment.
"Wait, that's all?"
"Well, yes and no. It's not like streaming is anything new." Kenma muttered, though there was a slight waver to his tone that very few would notice. "I'm…making the Bouncing Ball announcement tomorrow. I don't know why it's making me feel like this."
Tetsurou wasn't surprised to hear that name make an appearance. Kenma had been planning in whispers even as far back as his second year of high school. Only recently had Kenma started putting the steps in motion to make it a reality. He'd probably assumed he'd done that quietly, as well, but Tetsurou was brighter and more perceptive than that. He'd seen the extra hours online that wasn't in a video game, the pensive staring off into space, even the increase of phone calls. Actually the last one was absolutely the kicker. Kenma hated talking on the phone, even banishing his boyfriend to text messages unless it was a moderate level emergency.
"Sounds like a good thing?" He attempted to reassure. It was worth a shot.
"Shouldn't you, of all people, know that good stress or bad stress… is still stress?" Kenma's brow furrowed, and suddenly the pie he'd been staring holes into was getting a look reserved for his worst enemies. Tetsurou had only seen it when running extra laps after volleyball practice.
The look and the thought behind it had the taller man cracking a smirk. "Technically, scientifically, yeah. Stress is the body's reaction to stimulus, not necessarily an indication of whether something is good or bad."
Kenma nodded, weakly, his brow starting to smooth. "I know. Cause you told me before."
"So, then, what do you normally do to relieve stress?" It wasn't like Tetsurou was clueless in this situation. Quite the opposite, really, but talking about it was part of the process.
Even so, Tetsurou wasn't thrown off by the incredulous look that Kenma tried to flatten him with. "Humor me."
The look didn't lessen, but underneath it Tetsurou could see his boyfriend's shoulders and neck loosen, slightly.
"Come on, Tetsu, you know I've tried all the things I normally do, or I wouldn't be here. I even took a page out of your book and walked somewhere." Kenma's frown edged on a pout. Finally, he set the plate and pie down on the counter. It looked as though he was admitting defeat, but Kuroo Tetsurou had never been one to give up… okay he did, sometimes, but not right now. This was about Kenma rather than himself and that made all the difference.
Tetsurou edged his way closer until he bumped into Kenma's legs and then glanced up at him again. "Then… let's try something different. Something we don't normally do."
The responding glance was suspicious but the younger man didn't move. "Different how?"
"We've tried running, walking, overthinking and playing farming games…" Tetsurou explained. "How about something tactile? Something that can expend both of our energy?"
The suspicious look didn't waver, and now that he thought about it, Tetsurou could definitely see why. It did sound a little devious. Maybe even a little perverted, but that's not at all what he'd intended! "Nothing weird! Something like dancing! You know any steps?"
Kenma's eyes flicked away but he didn't move from the counter. "Dancing is weird." Then his voice dropped. "And of course I don't know how to dance…"
Tetsurou pushed off of the counter and spun around to come face to face with Kenma. His cheeks were a little pink, a normal occurrence when the cute little gamer was faced with something he didn't know how to deal with.
"Well good, cause I don't know how to dance either!"
Before he could protest, Kenma was in Tetsurou's arms and hoisted off the comfortable surface of the countertop. He was held close and tight and the pair spun around once.
After that,mercy was given and Kenma's feet were free to touch the floor once more. "We just move, right?"
"Not quite." Tetsurou scrutinized their position and frowned before settling their hands in the position he assumed they were supposed to go. One hand on a waist, or a hip perhaps? He was fairly certain about their clasped hands.
"This is awkward, Tetsu. What's the point?" Kenma feebly attempted to dissuade the rooster haired love of his life, though his attempts pinged off Tetsurou's bright grin like wooden arrows off the side of an oncoming tank.
"The point is us." Tetsurou said, though he couldn't hold back the chuckle for long. It was cheesy , even for him.. "I mean us as in an insomniac duo of brilliant, handsome guys that care far too much about the world around them, despite what everyone seems to think."
He couldn't help but chuckle at the long and exasperated groan that accompanied his speech. It was cute.
With that final exclamation, Tetsurou started to move his feet, stepping in a small circle to music neither of them could hear. There wasn't a lot of room and they had to be careful not to knock their elbows into the appliances, but each spin was erasing the world around them.
The soft smile on Kenma's lips was beautiful. The most perfect thing Tetsurou had ever seen, every single time.
"How long do we need to do this?" Kenma's voice was quiet as though he was afraid to break the bubble they'd built around themselves.
"Just until we collapse from exhaustion." Came the reply and a sarcastic snicker.
"Kuroo…" Kenma's exasperation and the use of his family name were a gentle warning.
But Tetsurou refused to fold, completely. "Okay, okay. Just before we collapse we'll move to the closest soft surface."
"Acceptable… I guess."
