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You knew it was his passion. As childish as you felt thinking so, it felt as though you were nothing next to Kenma’s beloved video games, his streaming audience. He told you he loved you so often, maybe not with words but with his action. It felt as though those small actions, like buying you a bouquet of your favorite flowers that you mentioned over a year ago, or remembering how you like your coffee, it felt as though they were disappearing. Maybe you just got too comfortable.
Kenma had an ex before you. A woman named Yui, someone he meant through his frequent gaming. They dated for quite a while, and she was Kenma’s first. First kiss, first relationship, first everything, first ex, the first person to cheat on him. You had been friends with him during their relationship, unaware of the peaking romance in your heart. His breakup with her brought you two closer, as you comforted him the night he found out what she did. He couldn’t even say that he was disgusted because of his insecurities. You did everything for his happiness, you fell to your knees and dropped everything for him the moment he opened his mouth.
So why couldn’t he have done the same? You were still tearing yourself apart for him but he was giving nothing to you except ignoring you, while he obsessively plays his video games, not paying any mind to you when you enter his room. You had finished a hard project that you had been struggling with recently for school, and you wanted to share it with him again since it was quite important to your degree.
“Can you just be quiet? I’m trying to focus and this ranked,” Your heart stung, but you just gave a sour smile, pursed your lips, and left his office. Maybe he would be willing to speak with you after his session, just wait a bit.
15 minutes quickly turned into 30, then an hour, then another. But by the end of the second, you had your shoes and jacket on, sighing as you lost your patience and couldn’t even keep yourself entertained. Your heart was crushed, stomped on, and shattered. Maybe it would be a one-time thing.
It would be a lie if you said it didn’t sting when he didn’t call you later. Send you a text asking where you were. He could have just asked why you had left. Actually, he should have been apologizing for his lack of care! He didn’t even take a moment to speak with you! He didn’t even say hello, he went straight to criticizing you. What an excuse of a boyfriend he was! Kenma really wasn’t a good one, but the only thing that it brought up in you was how you could have changed.
Maybe he was just tired and fell asleep.
You had gotten almost used to the presence. Or lack of, since you were at least in the same house, just maybe four rooms apart.
The first year of your relationship was like heaven on earth. Never once did the spark of warmth and comfort leave the both of you. His hand was always with yours and he never was four rooms away. He spoke to you first and texted you first. He even sent you flowers! Flowers! From someone so indescribably lazy he went through the effort to go through flower language!
All for you.
It didn’t feel like it was all for you, not anymore. You heard the laughter, the air of smiles that suffocated you because it wasn’t you on the receiving end of Kenma’s happiness.
“What is it.” The words sounded like a question but Kuroo knew better. You saw the think gulp he swallowed, his face like he was in pain. Every moment he would open his mouth to speak, before closing it again. Again, and again, and again. You felt the tears pricking at your eyes. His face told you everything, the scrunched eyebrows and the pitiful eyes he gave you.
The three of them stood in Kuroo’s small apartment as your fist banged on his door. He jumped running at the sound of your voice. Akaashi quickly ran to you. Abruptly stopping when you were nothing like he expected. Straight face, wandering eyes from each face. Before you pulled to the kitchen far into the apartment, sliding into the barstool at the island.
Bokuto stood in pure confusion, unaware of anything going on, Akaashi took this as a sign his assumptions were correct. Kuroo knew. He knows.
You slumped over your head on the cold granite, warm candle fires decorating the table fluttering in your sight. Bokuto was the first to approach you. He didn’t know the cause of this, but maybe he could help. Quick to stop him Kuroo began to roll your name off his tongue before you asked the question.
“What is it?” Again, always again. Your voice shook and Kuroo stood in silence. Your head was still down when you heard mug tink against the table.
“A drink?” Akaashi's voice was quiet, a sorrowful whisper as his gentle hand reached for yours.
“Maybe a coffee, yeah, that’d be nice.” His eyebrows came tightly knit at the feeling of your hand trembling in his. His eyes through a violent glare at Kuroo, whose lips are pursed.
With a deep breath and the shift of the seat next to you, Kuroo finally speaks.
“He’s,” A pause of obvious contemplation, of how he should word this,” he’s been different.”
“Very different, I know, and you’ve probably noticed too, as his lover. Really, I don’t know how it happened or when but I do know that he—” The tension in the air made you choke and your ears ring. Anyone could figure out the next words, anyone including you. Maybe you’re misinterpreting it. Maybe he was, in a block. In a valley, he was struggling to get out of. Maybe the valley was you. Your throat hurt, maybe it was the words that were stuck at the back of your mind finally preparing to pour out, whether through words or through tears,
“I think he met someone else.”
Kuroo’s words rang in your head. Your cheeks turn up and you almost laugh,
“Someone else..?” You jump up to face Kuroo, “No, that couldn’t be!” Your voice is shaking, and the bizarre tone of laughter is right underneath your words. The emotion in Akaashi’s eyes, Kuroo’s frown, and Bokuto’s stillness, all pointed to the same thing.
Maybe you’re just misunderstanding, right?
“It’s all just a misunderstanding! A—” Your knees buckle up, Kuroo’s hand holding up by the shoulders. You can see the ache in your eyes.
Salty warmth flowed down your cheeks as Kuroo held you close, the other two watching in sadness as Bokuto rubbed your back.
They said the stages of grief were long and hard to interpret. Must have been a lie, because you were already in the stage of anger. Maybe you skipped right to bargaining, Or maybe, you were stuck in denial for too long, it would explain your lovely vocabulary consisting of too many maybes.
All you saw was red, a blurry red. Your ears rang like a school bell in your brain. Alarms left and right as you hear the faraway shouts of the three who comforted you when the bubble burst. Your feet rushed to your car, keys jangling in your jacket as you fought to pull them out. The beep, the start of the engine, and the rumble of the car rolling forward all crumpled into a ghost of a moment.
Before long you arrive at the parking garage at the luxurious apartment the Kenma lived in. The same parking spot every single time, you pulled into the slot just as easily as before, though you hoped to make this the last time.
The apartment looked the same as it did 4 hours ago when you came by earlier. It stung, remembering the sour face he had made at you as you tried to have a basic conversation with Kenma. The minutes and hours you wasted on the couch, the barstool at the kitchen table, every memory made cringe in disgust at the thought. How the hell did you miss the signs for this long? What kind of childish la-la land were you in where you let him hurt you in the ways that he did? And for so long!
You purse your lips, slamming his office door open. It could have, no, should have been expected, Kuroo told you exactly what it was.
“I think he found someone else.”
Sure enough there she was, Hands filthy with each other's infidelity. Kenma’s hand was stuck in her hair, practically eating the girl, mouth wide open as she, Yui, did no better than reciprocate. His eyes slowly turned before peeling wide open at the sight of your raised brow.
“Ba—”
“Great timing.” His eyebrows knit as he stared at you, the woman he had just been sticking his tongue down staring at you, looking you up and down. You smiled, eyes full of seething anger as you didn’t move from your spot at the doorframe. Kenma jumped up, pushing the girl, whom you’re sure was the same Yui you remembered was the cheater, right off of his lap.
“C—c’mon! Baby!” You could feel your heart in your throat, and your ears, and it feels like you’d been waiting a lifetime for that expression that you felt fall on your face and fall onto his. Sadness, regret, shame. Finally, maybe he would understand. Your fist trembled at your side, itching to draw back and smack the cheater of a man.
“Don’t call me that like you really care. I just fucking walked in on you and you think I’m gonna forgive you?”
“I— You—” His face quickly scrunched up as he tried to come to some conclusion. A hysterical sense of anger overtakes you in a sudden break, if you’re gonna fucking cheat, at least know you’re damn way out.
“Seriously? Not even the slightest excuse! You’re fucking pathetic!” Your throat burned from the sudden volume change, and it seemed Kenma’s also was lost for words. Heart still racing, from joy, relief, or some other emotion you couldn’t come up with a word to explain at that moment, you turned on your heel about to leave before pausing,
“Maybe, you’re just out of luck.”