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When Kenma ducks out of the volleyball gym into the chill of the evening of December 22nd, the team only offers token protests, well aware of his social timer. They have stayed after school, not to practise, but to have a little party of their own before Christmas break.
The social timer is only half the reason Kenma leaves early. The other half is Kuroo’s LINE message. They meet just outside the school gates, both wearing the beanies with the pom-poms Kuroo’s grandmother had knitted, but Kuroo in a bulky, puffed-up coat and track pants, a duffle bag slung across his chest, and Kenma in his school uniform and a parka with a fur-lined hood.
“You could’ve come inside.”
“It’s your team now,” Kuroo says and reaches to put his arm across Kenma’s shoulders, then pulls him into a hug. Kenma’s face gets smushed against the strap of the duffle bag, but he doesn’t complain. Kuroo chins him on the forehead, and his skin is freezing.
“You’re a legend to them,” Kenma murmurs, hands fisted in the shiny material of Kuroo’s coat. “You could come in anytime.”
“Eh, Yamamoto and Lev want to get yelled at again?” Kuroo snickers.
“Think they do.” Kenma lets the hug go on as long as Kuroo wants. It’s not fully dark yet, but almost so, where the streetlamps create yellow cones under themselves and the air is turning blue. There’s no snow, but it feels like there might be some soon. Kuroo smells like a fresh gym bag.
“Let them keep thinking I’m a legend,” Kuroo says, giving Kenma one last squeeze. “I travelled all the way across Tokyo and I’m starving.”
“You could’ve gone straight home,” Kenma says, backing away to look up at Kuroo’s pointy face. His nose is red.
“But I wanted to walk you home one last time.”
“So you aren’t coming to my graduation?”
“Ah.” Kuroo shuffles in place, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I will. If I can. I might have university stuff.”
They fall into familiar lockstep, elbow to elbow. Or Kuroo’s elbow to Kenma’s upper arm. It’s easy to walk so close when they’ve done it for years. The same route, every day, until Kuroo had graduated and moved onto university. It’s good to have him back, even if it’s only this once. Kenma likes it. He likes Kuroo.
“Are you really pulling the busy uni student card to skip my graduation?” Kenma says. He doesn’t care about the graduation. He would skip it too if he could, but it’s interesting to watch Kuroo’s face go through the seven sins and five stages of grief for such a simple thing. He ends up with a pinched smile, brows drawn down.
“Kenma,” he says, but doesn’t follow up with any actual statement.
“Kuro,” Kenma replies. Most days Kenma doesn’t mind that Kuroo isn’t there. But when he is, his next absence becomes more noticeable. When he is, it feels like nothing has changed, but when he isn’t, Kenma can feel the difference, and the difference is Kuroo-shaped. Long-legged and stubborn.
Kenma hadn’t realised just how scarce Kuroo would become between attending university and working. Even though most of his time had previously been split between school and volleyball, he’d been going to school and playing volleyball in Kenma’s immediate vicinity, always available in some capacity. Now Kenma needs copies of Kuroo’s class schedule and foreknowledge of his work shifts to even to be able to arrange a phone call.
“Sorry,” Kenma says at length, when they’re at the train stop. “For not making it to nationals this year.”
“Hm.” Kuroo leans into him, forcing Kenma to brace his feet on the pavement to not be bowled away. It’s hard to quantify the feeling Kenma has. Not exactly guilt, not exactly disappointment or shame. It’s just something negative. Something he wishes he didn’t have to feel in front of Kuroo. “No big deal,” Kuroo says. “You know it’s fine.”
Kenma headbutts Kuroo in the shoulder, and they scuffle about briefly on the platform while waiting for the train. It’s elbows and some knees, and Kenma reaching up to muss Kuroo’s hat onto his forehead. It at least unwinds something in Kenma, both to see Kuroo sputter a laugh and to move his limbs. Even in the midst of his worst exhaustion from volleyball practice, Kenma has to admit he’s used to it. He’s used to jumping and running and hitting the ball every day. Every day since the beginning of middle school. Without even noticing, volleyball has taken up more than half his life, along with Kuroo.
“I wanted to play more,” Kenma says on the train. Under the bright lights outside, he catalogues the redness of Kuroo’s cheeks and the dark touch of too little sleep under his eyes. He grins the same still.
“I know,” Kuroo says, duffle bag in his lap, arms stretched over it, tangling his knobbly fingers together. Kenma stares at them so he doesn’t have to look at the source of the strangled longing in Kuroo’s voice. Then the bulge at the end of the duffle bag becomes suspicious, and Kenma lays his hand on it.
“You brought a volleyball back from uni,” he says.
“Oops,” Kuroo says. The longing is replaced with his sly, pointed grin. “I thought we could toss it around a bit.”
“But none of the volleyballs you left behind or the ones I have won’t do?”
“You own actual volleyballs?” Kuroo says, but brings the bag closer to his chest defensively. Kenma pulls Kuroo’s hat over his eyes again, making the black pom-pom flop forwards and Kuroo laugh. Kenma sits back in his seat, staring out the window at the numerous Christmas lights sparkling in the city as the train speeds by. There are parts of him that ease with Kuroo’s presence and others that clench.
*
*
*
“I’m home!” Kuroo says as soon as the door is open.
“Tetsurou, is that you?” Kuroo’s grandmother calls out.
“Yes, it’s me!” Kuroo calls back. “Who else? Is dad not back yet?”
“He’s working late.” Akari-san comes out of the kitchen. “Hello, Kenma-kun.” She clicks her tongue at them both, as if they’re still about 11 years old. She often makes Kenma feel that way.
“Hello, Aunty,” Kenma murmurs, holding out the box of expensive strawberries with both hands. His parents always prepared gifts of fruits for the Kuroo-sans at Christmas for hosting Kenma over the holidays. A tradition that’s not entirely necessary anymore, but still practised. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
“Oh, thank you. So polite. I’m in your care.” Akari-san accepts the gifts with a bow. “You know, Tetsurou, Kenma-kun never visits us now that you’re not here.”
Kuroo heaves a sigh. “Grandma.”
“Fine. Fine. Come in. Welcome home, Tetsurou.” She turns on her heel, never one to smother anybody in affection. Kenma respects her for it. He stows his hat in his pocket and toes off his shoes when Kuroo’s big hand lands on the back of his head.
“Kenma,” he says. “What’s this?” He pulls on the half a bun Kenma has taken to wearing to keep his hair out of his face and mouth.
“Hair stuff,” Kenma says, pushing Kuroo’s hand away.
“Cute,” Kuroo says, nudging Kenma’s cheek with his knuckles.
Kenma just ducks his head and takes off his coat, then shuffles out of the genkan, clutching his backpack. The back of his neck tingles, and he swipes at his hair, wishing it covered more of him.
“Hey, take this upstairs,” Kuroo shoves his duffle bag at him. “I’ll go see if Grandma needs help.”
Kuroo’s bedroom is not only tinier than what Kenma remembers but also more sparse, and it smells unused, like a storage space. The old posters remain, a floor desk, a pile of plastic boxes with lids on filled with old clothes. A volleyball on top. The window is covered with blue curtains, and Kenma knows intimately how sweltering the room gets during the summer and how cold in the winter. He’d never spent that much time there, but neither had Kuroo. Kuroo was never a stay-indoors kid, and when he did stay indoors, it happened in Kenma’s much larger, air-conditioned room a few houses down.
Kenma puts their bags down and digs into his own for his charger, then sits by the old desk on the floor, turning on the tiny electric heater somebody has placed there and leaning into its artificial warmth. On his phone, he scrolls through the Nekoma VBC group chat, acknowledging the well-wishes from the team, then responds to Shouyou’s third merry-christmas message. Shouyou insists he hasn’t forgotten he’s already said it, but every time Kenma replies to a previous message, Shouyou says it again. The recursive well-wishing trap has him until Kuroo raps on the wall by the stairs, then calls out.
“Kenma! Can you get the souvenirs from my bag?”
“Got it,” Kenma says under his breath, walking across the floor on his knees to get at Kuroo’s duffle. He takes out the incriminating volleyball, hoping it’s not one of the souvenirs, and finds the small plastic bag with Kuroo’s university logo on the side. “Dork,” he mumbles, taking the bag downstairs and lurking in the kitchen doorway until Kuroo notices him.
“Kenma,” he says, eyes flicking to Kenma’s hair again, beckoning him in. “I told you I brought souvenirs,” he says to his grandmother.
“From your university gift shop,” Kenma adds, handing the bag to him.
“She asked!” Kuroo shrugs. His shoulders seem to fill more and more of the house every time he visits, now carrying the aroma of their future dinner on them. Akari-san clicks her cooking chopsticks at him.
“Thank you, Kenma-kun,” she says. “Help yourself to some snacks. Dinner isn’t for a little while yet.”
“Oh, so I get the third degree, but Kenma gets snacks?” Kuroo says, upending the little bag on the table. Kenma stays in the doorway. Not out of shyness for a woman who’s fed him countless times, but out of pettiness. He wants to spend time with Kuroo and only Kuroo. Even if it’s just them sitting quietly in the same room while Kenma games and Kuroo reads Girls und Panzer. Kenma would even settle for tossing the volleyball in the frigid night.
“I was just asking Tetsurou about a girl he mentioned before,” Akari-san says. “Is there anything you want to add, Kenma-kun? Do you two talk about girls? Or just volleyball?”
Kenma stands frozen, flicking his eyes to Kuroo. They don’t talk about girls. Not in so many words. Kenma knows about the confessions and kisses Kuroo has had in high school, but he’s not heard of Kuroo’s experiences with girls at university, other than that there are girls there. Girls and group dates, some of which Kuroo had attended, schedule permitting.
“Can we both just get snacks and zero interrogation?” Kuroo says loudly, scattering the branded keychains and fridge magnets onto the table, along with a shogi set. “I had one group project with Kobayashi-san. I barely know her.”
“She seemed nice,” Akari-san says, shrugging at Kuroo’s muttered objection of you never even met her. “Fine. Get your snacks and go be brats upstairs. Your grandpa is taking a nap, so don’t stomp your feet, Tetsurou.”
It is somehow unkind the way Akari-san reduces Kuroo into a child again. Responsible volleyball captain Kuroo, 19, now a university student, is told not to stomp his feet. Kenma doesn’t have grandparents, not alive ones, just memorial tablets to look at, so maybe it’s a grandmother thing he doesn’t know of.
The snacks are numerous. Too numerous for people about to have dinner, and for Kenma who’s already had snacks at the team party. He opts to carry two floor cushions while Kuroo balances the tray of food up to his room. They settle on the tatami by the desk, and Kuroo looks around the room with a bemused face. He’d managed not to spill any of the hot tea in their cups on the way up.
“It’s smaller than I remember,” Kuroo says, but the room was never big to begin with. They both sit cross-legged on their cushions, and Kuroo’s knee is jammed against Kenma’s thigh as they huddle by the desk in the light of the old lamp Kuroo had left behind. It has a frilly blue lampshade. Both the curtains and the lampshade seem to have come from the bedroom of somebody much older.
“You’re bigger,” Kenma says.
“Not physically.” Kuroo spreads his arms, to gesture at his perpetually narrow frame, except the shape of it, even under his loose sweatshirt, seems more exaggerated. Wider shoulders, smaller waist. “But...” Kuroo hesitates, slouching into the desk. “I get what you mean. Perspective.”
“Is that why you didn’t come see the team?” Kenma says. He takes one of the tea cups and holds it with both hands, staring at the bottom of the shallow pool of liquid.
“Ahh, you got me there, Kenma-kun,” Kuroo says. “The school gym... It would feel smaller too, I think. And I’d feel out of place.”
“And you don’t want that,” Kenma fills in.
“And I’d rather not,” Kuroo confirms, leaning his cheek on his knuckles. He seems far away for a moment. Physically present, but still somewhere else. Kenma doesn’t like it. He nudges Kuroo with his toes.
“Dad missed you too,” he says quietly. The team isn’t the only one who’s noticed Kuroo missing. “For decorating.”
“The tree?” Kuroo says, coming back with a nostalgic grin. “Yeah. Did Uncle have to do it all by himself?”
“Pretty much.”
“You didn’t help?”
“Why should I? It’s your job,” Kenma mutters into the cup. The tree-decorating had been a quiet affair without Kuroo. Just his dad humming to the Christmas music and Kenma playing on his muted 3DS. Nobody to reach up and place the tree topper without a step-ladder. Nobody to break the silence.
“Ehh, Kenma, you’re ruthless,” Kuroo says with the grin of explicit approval, then his edges soften again, like he’s passing behind a blurred window. “I missed you. When did you decide to do that with your hair?”
“It wasn’t as much a decision as a necessity,” Kenma says, resisting the urge to touch his hair. The bun has come almost loose, and most of Kenma’s hair is plastered along his skull like normal.
“It is getting a bit long,” Kuroo says. He leans forwards, hand poised, then pauses. “Can I?”
Kenma bends his head and shifts one unit closer. I missed you rings around his ribcage and turns him loose and warm like the tea, cupped in Kuroo’s hand. Kuroo works the hair tie out of his hair, combing it with his fingers afterwards.
“There,” he says, touch lingering. “That looks like you.”
“Is it comforting?” Kenma says.
“A bit.” Kuroo hands him the hair tie. “Now put it up again.”
Kenma scrunches up his nose, then puts the cup of tea down and takes the hair tie, pinching it between his lips while he runs his hands through his hair and collects it into a haphazard bun. Some of his hair at the front is too short to reach, so it falls out immediately, and he pushes it behind his ears, surprised at how hot they feel even to his tea-warmed fingers. Kuroo watches, a grin slowly pulling his lips apart and his face into a pleased squint.
“I like this too,” he says. “And you were totally thinking I’m a pain in the ass. I know that face.”
“You took it apart and made me redo it,” Kenma says at Kuroo’s widening grin.
“I wanted to see how you do it,” Kuroo says shamelessly. “Can you blame me? I’ve had the same hair since I was born. I think. I could ask my mom if-”
Kenma can’t believe they’re still able to land in an awkward silence between the two of them. It’s not because of what Kuroo says, but because of the way his face freezes and falls in sudden uncertainty, like the temperature dropping. He ruffles his own hair in agitation, then covers his face. Kenma’s petty claws protract to hold onto Kuroo.
“You don’t have to go,” he says. Their Christmas together will be cut short, and for the first time in a decade, Kuroo won’t be there to do hatsumode with him in the New Year. “Just because she’s your mother-”
“I didn’t go this summer, so I promised to go after Christmas,” Kuroo says and drops his hands, offering Kenma a small smile. “I kinda wish you could come with.”
“Hm,” Kenma voices his displeasure. Kuroo had worked through the summer, no longer beholden to the endless volleyball. Oh. It does have an end after all. Next summer Kenma will no longer attend the summer training camp either, and the thought comes with the unbearable sense of a storm having passed. Maybe relief, maybe regret.
“I’ve told them all about you,” Kuroo says. “Mom and Setsuko. You know, my sister.”
In turn, Kenma has never heard much about Kuroo’s mother and sister. Just that they exist. A few pictures here and there. The fact that they live in Naha, Okinawa, and the fact that Kuroo has visited them every summer since moving to Tokyo, coming back nut-brown and quiet. The nature of the quiet has changed over the years, from troubled to thoughtful. It’s not kind to think of his attachment to Kuroo as hooks or claws, but that’s what it is.
“I think they’d be happy to meet you finally,” Kuroo continues, reaching for the niboshi. “Mom probably still has my baby pictures. That’s what I was thinking.”
“I don’t think I’d be able to get a plane ticket,” Kenma says quietly, ready to do things for Kuroo he hasn’t even asked for. “This short notice.”
“Eh, it’s okay,” Kuroo hurries to say. “I didn’t think you’d want to come, really. It’s just... Ahh.” He rubs his hair again and rolls his shoulders. “I just don’t get to spend that much time with you anymore,” he continues. “And when I get back from Naha, Christmas holidays will be over and I’ll go back to uni and you’ll go back to school.”
“What about now?” Kenma says. “You’re spending time with me now.”
Kuroo’s blank surprise melts into fond embarrassment. He flops backwards onto the tatami and flings an arm across his face. “Kenma~. Sharp as ever.”
Kenma straightens one leg to dig his toes into Kuroo’s thigh, enough for Kuroo to peer at him from under his arm, mouth curling in question. Kenma climbs onto his knees and shuffles over. He’s held Shouyou’s sweaty hand, which had been restless like a bird, and even kissed Shouyou’s salty upper lip. He’s endured countless sweaty high-fives, low-fives, mid-match jostles and team hugs. He’s extremely normal about touching, so it should be nothing out of the ordinary to put his hand on Kuroo without the underlying cause being to bat him around.
Just as Kenma begins to lean over him, Kuroo flings his arms open. “Want to look at the listings? I brought the book.”
“I don’t know why we can’t just look online,” Kenma mutters, pulling his hand back, but it’s far from a negative, and Kuroo knows it. His eyes are wide and energised despite the dark circles and sunken cheeks he’d brought back from uni as souvenirs for himself. Kenma isn’t great at sleeping or setting boundaries for himself, but he feels an urge to do something for Kuroo. To be something.
“Because.” Kuroo gets the apartment listings book from his duffle bag. Kenma is beginning to suspect it doesn’t contain clothes at all. “Because I like pages, Kenma.”
“There are web pages,” Kenma says, sliding onto the floor next to Kuroo, who’s laid on his front again, floor cushion bunched up under his chest as he flips through the book.
“I like pages I can touch,” Kuroo amends. “With my fingers. Not a cursor.” He showcases a pincer-movement with his thumb and forefinger in front of Kenma’s face.
“There are touchpads,” Kenma says, laying his chin on his crossed arms on the floor.
“Kyanma.”
“Kuro.”
“Look at the thing I brought you,” Kuroo says, shoving the book under Kenma’s nose. “I marked some I thought were good.” Kuroo points at colourful post-it strips poking out between the pages. His shoulder is comfortably next to Kenma’s, and their thighs are flush. Kuroo’s legs are bent at the knee and his ankles crossed in the air.
“They’re all the same,” Kenma says after flipping through a few pages.
“Well, yeah,” Kuroo agrees, cheek smushed against his palm. “At this price point you don’t get a lot of variation from the basics.”
At the very end of the book, Kenma finds houses to let, not just apartments. He looks through them as well, while Kuroo lays his head in his arms and closes his eyes.
“Will you bring many people home?” Kenma asks.
“Huh?” Kuroo murmurs. “What people?”
“People.”
“Care to elaborate on that?” Kuroo says, eyebrows tilting together.
Kenma’s not great at explaining, but he’s had to try. Countless times. Kuroo still doesn’t understand StarCraft APM, and Lev—although vastly better than his first year—still doesn’t understand personal space. “Friends,” he finally decides, trying to figure out the question that had come from the bottom of his stomach instead of his brain.
“Like Bokuto?” Kuroo says. “Like Yakkun? Kai? Those friends?”
“Or... or new friends,” Kenma says slowly, drawing his fingers along the edges of the pages in front of him. “From university.”
“Eh.” Kuroo squints at him like a woken-up cat, a faint, incredulous grin haunting his face. “Kenma,” he starts, then falters, just looking up at him. The look squeezes parts of Kenma’s insides he isn’t sure he’s ever felt before. His... spleen. Liver. The gallbladder? Maybe he’s nauseated. He suddenly finds the listings of endless 2R, 2K, 2DK, and 2LDK apartments fascinating.
“I work most nights,” Kuroo says finally. “I don’t really have the time to bring anybody over. Which you know.”
Kenma does know. It’s the reason why he’s only visited a few times, and why most of their friendship has been relocated to phones and to chats and Kenma’s occasional streams. Kenma folds to the side, pushing at Kuroo’s shoulder with his forehead.
“We’re still going to need at least a 2DK,” he says.
“I don’t mind a 2K,” Kuroo says. “I can stay in the big open room. You know, next to the kitchen.”
If the last addition is meant to sway Kenma in some way towards Kuroo’s idea, it fails. “No. You need a proper room too.”
“If we can afford it.” Kuroo butts his head against Kenma’s this time, his breath warm on Kenma’s cheek, smelling a bit fishy from the niboshi. Kenma still turns his face into it, mostly just to smell Kuroo. He’s been under Kuroo’s sweaty armpit enough times and spent enough time sleeping next to him to be intimately familiar with the way he smells after volleyball or after eating spicy food or after just bathing. He’s probably biased because sweaty boys in sweaty volleyball gear shouldn’t smell nice.
“When is the bath?” Kenma says instead of answering Kuroo’s unasked question about money, knowing full well the bath is after dinner. Kuroo digs his chin into Kenma’s shoulder until Kenma folds away from under it.
“For some reason, you asking that made me want to bite you really hard,” Kuroo says. “Are you insinuating I smell?”
“You do smell, so no,” Kenma says. Kuroo smells good. Kenma would like to bite him too. Leave a mark for him to carry to Okinawa and back to uni.
“Well, you have funny hair,” Kuroo says and touches the back of Kenma’s head, making the small bun bounce. “Hoho.”
Kenma headbutts Kuroo in the shoulder again, rubbing himself there. “Can you not.”
“I cannot not.”
“Kuro.”
“Kenma.”
“Boys! Dinner!”
*
*
*
Kuroo Saburou is as tall and lanky as his son, but his hair is combed back and instead of joggers and a sweatshirt, he wears the ubiquitous suit of a salaryman, now in his shirtsleeves and without a tie. Grandpa Kuroo, the family patriarch, is similarly tall, but already hunched a bit with age. His hair sticks up slightly after his nap. It’s already silvery, but in a pattern so similar to Kenma’s Kuroo that Kenma huffs a soft laugh at the sight of it.
Grandpa murmurs hm-hm and pats both Kenma and Kuroo on the head as he passes by to take a seat at the kotatsu they use for dinner in the winter. A bigger, wall-mounted heater radiates warmth into the living room, taking out the worst edge of the cold seeping through the thick curtains on the sliding doors to the little backyard. With the hotpot steaming on the table and his legs under the kotatsu blanket, Kenma feels very cosy. Akari-san likes to make her hotpot spicy, so both Kuroo and his father gain similar red spots on their cheeks from the heat of the broth when they start eating. Compared to the three generations’ worth of tall men, Akari-san is tiny, but views her family with a proprietary look on her face.
“How many people will I be cooking for on Christmas Eve?” she asks after the first rush of food has been consumed. She glances between her son and grandson, then smiles at Kenma. “Kenma-kun, anybody special in your life yet?”
Her brand of special is always the same. Kenma gives her a shake of his head and a mumbled, “No.”
“Hmm?” Akari-san moves onto Kuroo.
“Nope. Still no girlfriend,” Kuroo says quickly, then stuffs his mouth full so he doesn’t have to say more. He makes a face at his father, who clears his throat.
“Uh, ahem, I will be alone as well, Ma,” he says. “So I guess it’s all of us.”
“You’re all hopeless,” Akari-san says decisively to an agreeing mhm-mhm from Grandpa while he reaches for another piece of hotpot tofu. “Especially you.”
“Ma,” Saburou says peaceably, used to her griefing. “Just say the word and I’ll move out.”
“Now? After Tetsurou has already moved out?” she says sharply, immediately disapproving.
Kuroo’s toes wiggle against Kenma’s foot, and he shoots him a grimace-smile over the rim of his rice bowl, which he’s holding basically up to his nose. But it’s not like Kenma isn’t used to what Akari-san is like. Even though the Kuroo family’s men share many of the features Kenma likes to think of as Kuroo-isms, the name itself is Akari-san’s. Grandpa had married into her family, not the other way around.
“I’m happy to stay, but I’m not remarrying,” Saburou says, keeping his calm. “And I don’t have a date for Christmas Eve, and no, I don’t want to meet Kaji-san’s or anybody’s daughter. I’m happy to just do my job and paint my miniatures. And leave Tetsurou alone. He’ll have a girlfriend when he wants one. If he wants one.”
“If?” Akari-san says, and is echoed by Grandpa’s questioning mh-hm.
“If,” Saburou repeats. “Same goes for Kenma-kun.”
Kuroo’s face is pinched and pitched forwards. He’s put the rice bowl back down and is simply staring at it. Kenma nudges his foot, but both their mouths are pinned shut. Speaking out against Akari-san is a feat neither of them has mastered. Kenma stares into his food until Sabourou-san plops another plump piece of tofu into his bowl, smiling kindly at him.
“Kenma-kun,” he says. “How do you feel now that high school volleyball is over?”
“Sad,” Kenma says, and Kuroo leans his arm into Kenma’s shoulder, a brief lengthening of their body contact from their legs up their arms. “I guess- I guess I got used to it. And it turned out to be fun,” Kenma adds quietly, keeping his squirms of embarrassment under wraps when he sees the way Kuroo beams at him. Proud and fond and something extra. Saburou-san has some of the same fondness in his expression, the set of his eyes and mouth, although at first glance it’s hard to tell they’re father and son because Saburou-san’s face is soft and round, while Kuroo has inherited his pointiness from his mother.
“Are you thinking of continuing it in uni?” Saburou-san questions, and Grandpa makes a curious ah-ah.
“No,” Kenma mutters, ducking his head down into the steam of the hotpot. He starts when Kuroo combs some of his hair behind his ear, running the pads of his fingers along the shell of Kenma’s ear.
“It was going into the broth,” Kuroo says quietly. Past him, Kenma finds Akari-san watching them, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. She’s not angry, but she’s not pleased either. Like Kuroo in the third set with Nohebi. Frustrated because they’re not following the rules, but determined to win. Kenma can’t imagine what the win-condition is for the current situation.
Saburou-san leans across the simmering pot with his phone to show Kenma photos of his recently completed miniatures and model cars. He’s working on a diorama that Kenma never gets to see because Akari-san tells her son to stop using his phone at the table.
“Come look after dinner!” Saburou-san invites, then points a sudden finger at Kuroo. “You too.”
“Da~d,” Kuroo groans. “You sent me like a thousand pictures of it last week.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Saburou-san says, clutching his fist in determination. “It’s time for father-son bonding.”
Kenma hides his huff of laughter into his sleeve, but still earns a betrayed look from Kuroo, then an arm around his head, pulling him into Kuroo’s armpit. “Don’t think for a moment you’re safe.”
“No roughhousing at the table,” Akari-san says with the tone of a mother who’s raised three sons. Grandpa tut-tuts in tandem with her, but doesn’t look away from the television that’s on and showing the Christmas lights of downtown Tokyo. A father and grandfather used to his wife wielding discipline in the family. Kenma thinks it says a lot about her character that she had named her sons Tarou, Jirou, and Saburou—first son, second son, and third son.
When the dessert is served, after Kuroo has run himself ragged cleaning up after dinner at the behest of his grandmother, Akari-san pats Kenma on the top of his head as she brings out the apple pie and ice cream. When he glances up at her, she grasps at a long strand of his hair and clicks her tongue.
“You ought to cut it,” she says, but then nudges his head again, quite gently. The apple pie speaks for itself. A Western dessert from a woman who favours the Eastern, just for Kenma. He tries to sit up a little straighter for her, tries to eat more neatly than Kuroo and Saburou-san, who wolf down their portions in a minute and then clamour for more. The pie filling is still warm and gooey. Soft apples and cinnamon and crunchy sugar brittle. He has no grandparents of his own, and Akari-san only has one grandson among her grandchildren, so sometimes Kenma is awarded the same kind of regard from her as Kuroo. Both the positive and negative.
After the fragrant apple, the sharp, acrid smell of glue and paint and resin in Saburou-san’s hobby room makes Kenma’s nose wrinkle. He feels light-headed, pressed between the two equally tall men, both from the smell but also from having to look up. He’s not a giraffe, necks aren’t meant to do that. He’s spent a year speaking to Lev’s chest because he can’t be bothered to look up that far unless he’s about to set.
“...And it lights up!” Saburou-san says, turning a small switch on the side of his Christmas diorama, and tiny lights dance across the Christmas tree in the middle of the scene.
“It’s a car wreck,” Kuroo says, hands on his hips. “You made a Christmas diorama that’s a car wreck.”
“Everybody survived though,” Saburou-san points out. Five little human figurines are gathered around the tree, their cars tangled together on the fake snow. Even the cars have lights, blinking from the carefully crafted wreckage. Kenma enjoys the details.
“It’s very good,” he says. Even if Kuroo’s pointed, toothy grin is from his mother, his father has a softer version of it, which he aims at Kenma.
“Thank you, Kenma-kun. Fine, you can go. Not you, Tetsurou, I want a word.”
Kenma glances back at Kuroo’s crumpled eyebrows and pleading mouth before making his escape upstairs. At the top of the stairs, he hears the telltale thump of Kuroo’s feet on the floor, then sliding across it in his socks until he collides with the wall at the bottom of the stairs. “Kenma!” he says.
Kenma turns into Kuroo’s room, only to have Kuroo pound up the stairs after him and catch him in the doorway to try and enter the room at the same time as him, making them pop out of the frame and stumble inside, clutching at each other for balance.
“What was the word?” Kenma asks, looking at the dimple of Kuroo’s throat disappearing into the collar of his sweatshirt. Kuroo’s hands are curled around his upper arms, and Kenma’s fingers are at Kuroo’s elbows, feeling the sharp bone.
“Nothing important,” Kuroo says. “You know, dad stuff.”
Kenma does know. Fathers have the potential to be incredibly embarrassing. “Remember when Tora visited that one time and my dad tried to be cool?”
Kuroo snickers into Kenma’s face, moving him farther into the room. “I do. It was so funny.”
Funny isn’t the word Kenma would use. He groans as Kuroo places him back down on one of the floor cushions. “He tried to touch Tora’s hair.”
“I know.” Kuroo cackles unhelpfully, kicking the other cushion closer before settling on it. “And I thought Yamamoto was going to combust when he saw your mom. He kept going like-” Kuroo whips his head around away from Kenma, then back to him, then his face softens. “I mean, you do look a lot like your mom.”
Kenma meets Kuroo’s eye, but only briefly. He pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands and worries them in lieu of having anything better to do with his hands. His phone is on Kuroo’s desk, just a small distance away from him, blinking on its charger cable. The ever-present thorn of anxiety gives a prickly nudge to his diaphragm. Kuroo is right there. Doing a thing with his shoulders and broad hands. An upperclassman if Kenma ever saw one, even when the inexorable movement onwards has rendered Kuroo an underclassman once again.
“Want to watch volleyball until bedtime?”
At Kenma’s shrug and nod, Kuroo rolls onto his stomach, folding the floor cushion to support his upper body, and pulls his laptop out of his bag, placing it on the floor in front of himself. Kenma copies his pose, crossing his arms under his chin as the volleyball ensues. He recognises Kuroo’s emotional support volleyball match as soon as it starts, almost a ten-year-old Brazil vs Poland World Championships game. Kenma can’t even count the number of times he’s seen it.
Soon, Kuroo bumps his shoulder into Kenma’s, chin in his palm. And Kenma bumps back. Volleyball won’t disappear just because they’re no longer playing it. Although Kuroo still plays in his university team, but not with Kenma, not except on backyards and riverside. By the second set, Kuroo’s head has migrated over to rest on Kenma’s shoulder, and their bodies have a warm line between them. Because the game is so familiar, Kenma’s attention lapses inwards, nursing the thorn of anxiety and the yarn ball of possessiveness growing next to it, unwilling to give up any more of Kuroo than he has to. He’s doled out too many pieces without ever getting them back.
“We all did so bad this year,” Kuroo says sleepily when the third set is almost over. “Nekoma, Karasuno, Fukuroudani. None made it to Spring Nationals.”
“Hmm,” Kenma agrees. “Still we, is it?”
“Ehh.” Kuroo shrugs slightly, unashamed of his attachment.
It’s over for Kenma too. High school volleyball is over. “How long am I going to think it’s us when I see Nekoma somewhere?” he says.
“Not as long as I will,” Kuroo says easily, the sentimental fool. He’s right, of course, but Kenma thinks it’ll still be a while for him as well. He’s never going to play Shouyou again in a game that matters. It’s a different kind of thorn. He’s eight again, learning to pass a volleyball. He’s thirteen again, playing in his first match. He’s seventeen again, at the Nationals. With Kuroo, with Kuroo, with Kuroo.
“I think I really am sad,” Kenma says. Kuroo’s hair tickles his ear when Kuroo shifts.
“Me too,” Kuroo says.
“Still?”
“Always.” Kuroo’s eyes are closed, and the laptop’s screen projects phantom images of volleyball onto his eyelids in the dark room.
*
*
*
Kenma’s thick winter parka doesn’t make receiving a volleyball easy, so the ball glances awkwardly off his forearms, bouncing off to the side instead of towards Kuroo. There’s no snow, but the dead grass in the riverside park is layered with frost and crunches underfoot as Kenma fights to keep his footing on the slippery surface.
“And then Bokuto said potatoes are as unique as snowflakes,” Kuroo cackles, returning the ball high and with a hard spin. Kenma finds it hard to appreciate Bokuto’s genius when he has to go down to one knee to be able to send the ball back up.
“And?” he says, frustrated.
“And it was a sweet potato,” Kuroo says, overreaching for the ball and slipping. “Ow. My quads.”
Kenma punts the ball onto the ground. “Let’s go back.” There’s sweat on his scalp and under his sweater, but his fingers are freezing and the sleeves of his coat are stained. At least volleyball no longer makes him sore. Kuroo’s coat flaps around him like a stunted wing, dropping off his shoulders when he straightens from his almost-fall.
“Surprised I got an hour out of you.” Kuroo scoops up the ball and spins it between his hands, ignoring the wet grass and old leaves stuck to it.
Kenma sneezes into the fur rind of his hood and stuffs his pom-pom beanie onto his head despite the sweat. He hates getting cold after sweating almost as much as he hates sweating. He isn’t big on late December morning outdoor volleyball either, but sometimes he’s willing to make an exception. Sometimes an exception is worth it. To prove he can. To support a friend. To win.
To spend time with Kuroo.
“You need long walks,” Kenma says, zipping his coat up to his chin. The sight of Kuroo’s bare throat exposed to the wind across the river gives Kenma second-hand shivers.
“Okay, then buy me a pizza bun,” Kuroo says, grinning. “Since I’m your dog.”
“Dogs can’t have pizza.” Kenma says. “Or pizza buns.”
“You’re making that up.” Kuroo laughs. “Bokuto would get me a pizza bun.”
“Ask him to walk you next time, then,” Kenma says. “Let me stay inside.”
“He’d make a good dog walker,” Kuroo agrees, somewhat wistfully, bouncing the volleyball.
They head back slowly, mired in familiarity that has grown unfamiliar over the months. They used to go everywhere side by side. School. Home. Volleyball matches. Hatsumode. The konbini. Kenma’s hands were always full. A phone, a console. But so were Kuroo’s. A volleyball, a sports bag. Kenma spends the trip back trying to remember what he usually does with his hands while walking. If he’s stiff or unnatural, Kuroo doesn’t remark on it, and Kenma doesn’t remark on how Kuroo occasionally lapses into thousand-yard stares, the ball ceasing its movement in his hands.
*
*
*
The 23rd of December is the Emperor’s Birthday. Kuroo’s grandparents had left after breakfast to attend the Emperor’s public birthday greeting ceremony at the Imperial Palace, leaving Saburou-san in charge of lunch. Instead, Saburou-san spends the time in the study with his miniatures and only appears in a startled hurry when Kuroo and Kenma are already done eating.
“I’m so sorry,” Saburou-san says, hand held up in apology. “The time just got away from me.”
“Relax, dad,” Kuroo says. “I took care of it.” They’re cosy under the kotatsu, Kenma lying down with his phone and Kuroo snacking on sunflower seeds while watching a Christmas music special on TV. The Kuroos rarely decorate much for Christmas, and there’s never a Christmas tree. The Emperor was born on the 23rd, and he doesn’t require any decorations, Akari-san had said. Which member of the imperial family is born on the 24th? Nobody.
“Oh my god,” Saburou-san says, slumping down. “I’m the worst dad. Is Kenma-kun- Is he asleep?” His voice drops to a whisper.
Kenma isn’t asleep, not quite, but he realises his eyes are closed and his phone has fallen from his lax hand. The kotatsu is warm and comfortable, his belly is full, and he’s even exercised. A nap doesn’t seem far off.
“No, he’s- Oh.” Kuroo’s voice softens too. “I guess he is.” His hand pats over Kenma’s head and hitches the hem of the kotatsu slightly higher. “Taking me for a walk must’ve tired him out.”
“Taking you out for a walk?”
“He called me a dog today,” Kuroo says, amused. The sound of him cracking open sunflower seeds continues, while the sound of the TV recedes. Kenma floats, not finding it in himself to let them know he’s actually awake. He is tired. Enough to be boneless.
Saburou-san chuckles, and the noise of sunflower seed-eating intensifies. Like father, like son. “This is nice,” Saburou-san says. “It’s been a while since you’ve been home.”
“Yeah, dad, that’s what moving out means.”
“Can’t I miss my only son?”
Kuroo’s leg kicks out, hitting Kenma’s shin, and there are sounds of scuffle and faint protest. “Da~d. Can you miss me without needing to mess with my hair?”
“You know you don’t have to go, right?” Saburou-san says after a brief moment of settling. “To see her.”
“She’s my mom.” Kuroo sounds tired suddenly. His leg stays next to Kenma’s.
The silence is filled with the faint trilling of Kurisumasu Ibu from the TV, a day early. The music clicks off and is replaced by the roar of banzai-cheers from the Emperor’s birthday greeting. The kotatsu is starting to get too toasty, so Kenma rolls over, shedding the kotatsu blanket. It also puts him against Kuroo’s hip, where he burrows, vaguely thinking that he’s rolled onto his phone, but not able to care. Kuroo’s fingers dig into his hair, pulling gently at his scalp.
“Did you two look at apartments?” Saburou-san says.
“We started,” Kuroo says.
“Which ones are you looking at?”
“Eh, the cheap ones.” Devil May Cry and Kuroo might be sounding fonder than he has any reason to. His next words are delivered in an even lower voice. “I’ve been saving up, and I think I can pay the whole rent for a while, provided we find something reasonable. I don’t want Kenma to worry about finding a job.”
Saburou-san sighs. “Don’t work too hard, Tetsurou. You’re just a kid too, and Kenma-kun can take care of himself.”
“I know, I know,” Kuroo says softly, as if embarrassed. “I know he can. I just want to- I want to take care of him too.”
For those words, and the ones preceding them, Kenma would rise from the dead. When he manages to open his gummy eyes, nothing seems out of place, as if he’d dreamed everything. Kuroo’s face is tilted towards him, but not soft—not softer than usual—and Saburou-san is watching the TV.
“Hey,” Kuroo says. “Want some sunflower seeds?”
“Nn,” Kenma grunts, clawing himself up into a sitting position. The TV is playing a Christmas-themed game show, almost muted, and the living room windows reveal a darkness that wasn’t there when Kenma lay down with his phone. Giving his LINE username to Lev had been a great mistake. Even Kuroo sends him fewer messages. The pile of sunflower seed shells on the kotatsu is bigger than expected, and both Kuroo and Saburou-san have steaming cups of tea in front of them. Kuroo’s laptop is cracked open on the corner of the kotatsu, displaying a text document as if he’d been working on an assignment.
“Welcome back, Kenma-kun,” Saburou-san says. “Tea?”
Kenma casts his bleary eyes at father and son, then shakes his head.
“Did you sleep badly last night?” Saburou-san says. “Did Tetsurou snore?”
“He doesn’t snore,” Kenma murmurs, pulling his hair loose.
“Hehe.” Kuroo flashes his teeth at his dad. “You’re the one who snores, old man, and this house isn’t soundproof. Why don’t you ask Kenma if that’s what kept him up?”
Saborou-san gasps, making the exact same gesture of disbelief as Kuroo would, placing his hand on his chest. “Me? I don’t snore! Back me up, Kenma-kun!”
“Is there any way I can get out of this without saying anything?” Kenma mutters, putting his face onto the table and his hand onto Kuroo’s thigh under the table.
He wants to dig into Kuroo. With his hands and teeth if necessary. Dig out the part that needs to work so hard that he puts himself second. No wonder he hadn’t had time to actually come see Kenma, or anybody. Kenma wants to rip into him, wear him as a coat, and put him to bed. And his nails digging into Kuroo’s flesh through his sweatpants is probably alerting Kuroo to something of that nature because his eyes are wide and he’s trying to pull Kenma’s controller-strengthened grip off.
“I’ll let you off the hook,” Saburou-san says and collects his tea. “Ma and Pa are going to be home any minute now, so I better start on the dinner.”
When the water turns on in the kitchen for the rinsing of the rice and vegetables, Kuroo winces at Kenma. “I’ll bruise.”
“Good,” Kenma says and lets up. “Dork.”
“Ow,” Kuroo says, rubbing his thigh. “What’d I do to deserve this?”
“Idiot.”
“Or that?”
“You’re being a dork and an idiot.”
“Eh, but why specifically?” Kuroo leans his cheek on his knuckles, giving Kenma a too-soft look, Christmas lights from the telly hung up on the tufts of his hair. “Let’s hear it, Kenma-kun.”
Taking care of somebody shouldn’t mean not taking care of yourself. Being hardworking shouldn’t mean not resting. “Because,” Kenma says stubbornly. “APM means actions per minute.”
“Excuse me?” Kuroo says.
“In StarCraft, APM means-”
“Kenma.”
“Kuro.” Kenma squirms. “It’s a measurement of a player’s load-handling capacity, but a big APM number doesn’t mean anything if the actions aren’t productive.”
“You woke up, pinched me, and called me an idiot because I don’t understand APM?” Kuroo says. “Did I get that right?”
There’s no blame in Kuroo’s voice, just curiosity, but his brow is wrinkled as he tries to peer under Kenma’s hair curtain. Kenma doesn’t feel like explaining himself further; Kuroo should know not to be an idiot. He should know not to fill his action queue with pointless actions that’ll only leave him in a bad position later on. He should trust Kenma to pull his weight when it matters. Kenma butts his head against Kuroo’s shoulder and feels Kuroo relax into it.
Then Kuroo squeezes his arm around Kenma’s shoulders, holding him in place. “Why does the top laner not simply go to the bottom lane-” he begins, and Kenma tries to jerk away.
“Kuro! That’s League of Legends-”
“Are you implying League doesn’t have APM-”
“That’s not what you were even saying.” Kenma struggles under Kuroo’s arm, then digs his elbow into Kuroo’s ribs. “Top laners don’t go to the bottom lane because there are rules-”
“Only implicit rules, which is why-”
“There are rules.” Kenma pulls on Kuroo’s bony wrist, thumb pressing into the soft underside, trying to wrangle the sinewy arm down, while Kuroo rubs his chin across the top of Kenma’s head. “You’re supposed to win using the rules. That’s the important part. That’s the interesting part. That’s the challenge.”
“You’re my hero, Kyanma.” Kuroo traps Kenma into his armpit, cackling. “I’d play you in League.”
“You can’t even play Nasus!” Kenma struggles. Kuroo’s nose travels along his hairline and over his ear, and the stray hairs of Kuroo’s chin prick against Kenma’s cheek. Blood tingles in Kenma’s lips, and the hair on his body stands on end, like he’s stepped into a thunderstorm.
Kuroo relaxes one shoulder, dropping lower; Kenma pulls up slightly. With a few touches of their noses, they find the right angle to kiss. And it is, undoubtedly, a kiss. More so than Shouyou’s upper lip. More so because it feels like a kiss. A lip-tingling, breath-seizing, warmth-spreading kiss.
They pull apart with a little smack, but Kuroo leans his forehead onto Kenma’s, and then they do it again. Quietly. Slowly. With breaths that are strained, and bodies that twist awkwardly. Their third kiss is interrupted by the front door, and they pull apart like velcro, and then Kenma finds his shaky feet and makes a dash upstairs.
“No running inside!” Akari-san calls from the genkan, and for the second time in as many days, Kuroo barrels after Kenma on the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Kenma still makes it into Kuroo’s room first, then whirls around to find Kuroo filling the doorway with his shoulders like they do Kenma’s mind.
Kuroo’s shirt is askew, revealing more skin on one side of his neck. It hangs on him a little looser than before, as if he’s lost weight. His collarbone is just that bit sharper. He clutches at the doorway on either side of himself with his big hands, mouth open as if there’s a question he needs to ask. But instead of asking it, he runs one shaky hand over his face, steps inside, and slides the door shut. Kenma, with his whole body shuddering at the mercy of his heartbeat, steps right into him, hikes his arms up around Kuroo’s tall neck and grabs onto the stretched collar of his sweatshirt, then kisses him again.
The voices of Kuroo’s grandparents and father disappear; the chill of the unheated room vanishes. Kuroo’s hands clench around Kenma’s middle and pull Kenma up to his tiptoes against Kuroo’s chest. Their lips meet stiffly at first, then grow soft and slow. Kuroo’s face smells like green tea. Their lips smack dryly and softly together and apart. Kenma thinks of passing practice.
“Kenma,” Kuroo says, his lips still against Kenma’s, voice the same kind of gravelly as when he’s just woken up. Heat pushes up from under Kenma’s shirt to his face, making him feel like he’s the apple pie, bursting with gooey-soft filling, and then speared by the fork of self-consciousness.
“What?” he says.
“We’re kissing,” Kuroo says. Sweet and red and dumb. Steam seems to have collected in his cheeks. Kenma wants to be a thorn in his side forever. A claw in his gut. A meal in his mouth.
Kenma pitches forwards and bites. At Kuroo’s mouth, at his cheek, holding him by his ears. Kuroo gasps, breath buffeting against Kenma’s lip, and lolls backwards against the door, bringing Kenma with him. Kuroo’s pointy hip digs into Kenma’s thigh, but his big hands settle on the small of Kenma’s back, holding him tight.
There’s surprisingly much nose involved in kissing. Or Kuroo is doing it on purpose, rubbing theirs together whenever he can while their kisses progress from closed-mouth smacks to open-mouth licks. Kuroo’s tongue tastes vaguely electric, like licking a battery, and he drinks the spit right out of Kenma’s mouth.
The stairs creak, and Kenma pulls back so fast his eyes blur. Kuroo looks dazed, still against the door, clothes rumpled like he’s been tumble-dried. The floor outside Kuroo’s door creaks next, followed by a gentle clearing of the throat from Grandpa as he passes by. Kenma’s senses, stretched to their breaking point, pick up the sound of the fridge opening downstairs, and then the quiet hrm-hrm of the old man as he enters the bedroom next to Kuroo’s. Nothing stays secret in the Kuroo house for long.
“Tetsurou! Come clean up after yourself!” Akari-san calls from the bottom of the stairs, shocking Kenma even farther away from Kuroo. He stumbles over the floor cushions by the desk.
“Coming!” Kuroo croaks, throwing a terrified look at Kenma before he leaves the room, trotting down the stairs.
“Why are you so red? Did you fall asleep in the kotatsu?” Akari-san’s voice is faint, but the edge of scolding is clear. Kuroo’s response is too low for Kenma to hear. He curls up onto the floor of Kuroo’s room, glad he doesn’t have to submit his glowing face and shaking hands to Akari-san’s judgement right now.
Then embarrassment overrides the excitement. Kenma folds his arms over his head, and his heart swells uncomfortably against his lungs, making it hard to breathe. The sound of his heart is like drumming against his skull while his ears are plugged. Kenma clutches hard at the floor cushions, as if otherwise he’s going to float away into the upper atmosphere, buoyed by sheer awkwardness.
After kissing Shouyou, he’d just gone back to practice. He hadn’t been flushed, or hot, or tingling. He hadn’t been uncomfortably aware of his own body, every centimetre of it touching something, his clothes, the tatami mat. He hadn’t wanted to kiss Shouyou again.
*
*
*
Nobody expects Kenma to socialise at dinner, so he sits there quietly, hair tied out of the way, and with Kuroo’s knee overlapping his. Kenma is quiet as a matter of fact, but Kuroo is also quiet, barely looking up from his dinner.
“I ran into an old friend of mine at the Imperial Palace,” Akari-san says when the earlier topic of vegetable prices is exhausted. Mm-mm, Grandpa agrees with a nod behind his cup of rice. “You remember Tano-san, don’t you?”
“Tano Kaoru-san?” Saburou-san says.
“Yes, that’s her,” Akari-san says. Her eyes have the same look Kuroo has when he’s satisfied. “Her daughter is also single.”
“Ma, no,” Saburou-san groans and drops his face in his hand. “Please tell me you didn’t-”
“And since tomorrow is the 24th, and it’s such a romantic date, we agreed that you two kids should meet and-”
“Ma! I work tomorrow,” Saburou-san interrupts. Despite his face being round and unlike Kuroo’s, his tone of voice and his body language are similar. Kenma feels a surge of compassion for him, trained for years to avoid those same signs of stress on Kuroo.
“I know,” Akari-san says, pulling away from his outburst. “That’s why we agreed you two could meet for drinks in the evening. She has a career too, you know.”
Kuroo is also stiff next to Kenma, chopsticks halfway to his mouth and head drooping in dread as if waiting to be executed next. Akari-san truly rules with terror. Kenma might not be able to help Saburou-san, but he palms Kuroo’s knee under the table. And though their lips are nowhere close to touching, the soft tingle of wanting to rises through Kenma like carbonation, bubbling up in his face hotly. Kuroo looks at him from under his brows and smiles wanly. It’s enough. It’s always been enough.
“Ma.” Saburou-san looks defeated. “Stop setting me up.”
“Well, you won’t let me set Tetsurou up,” she counters. “You know, Keiko-san has a granddaughter-”
“You’re such a meddler!” Saburou-san says louder, surprising Grandpa into an ahem.
“Saburou,” the old man says in his gravelly voice. It’s enough of a censure from a man who rarely takes part in the intra-family arguments, which Kenma thinks is a very wise tactic.
Akari-san places her chopsticks down and sits straight-backed in perfect seiza, hands folded in her lap. Her face has tightened into an expression of displeasure, eyes narrowed and mouth flat. Kuroo’s fingers cover Kenma’s hand.
“Let Tetsurou decide what he wants and when he wants it,” Saburou says. “You know we had Setsuko when I was Tetsurou’s age, and it was too young. He doesn’t have to go through that just because you want him to.”
“I did not force you into anything. Any of you. You all chose to-”
“I’m gay,” Kuroo says.
Grandpa doesn’t even look up from his pickles. Mhm-hm, he murmurs. Saburou-san’s face is soft and worn, but accepting. Akari-san frowns.
“You’re my only grandson,” she says.
“And I’m gay, Grandma,” Kuroo says. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Saburou-san says.
There’s a shift, which would probably not be noticeable to many, but Kenma is both hyper-aware and super anxious, so it almost feels like a spot of static electricity combing over him. His skin prickles. Kenma is accustomed to pressure on the volleyball court and even in various social situations, but dinner with Kuroo’s family hasn’t been one of those in years.
Akari-san is looking at him.
Kuroo shifts, blocking her view with his shoulder. “What? Why are you looking at Kenma?”
“Well, is he gay?” Akari-san says, and the uncomfortable electricity shocks Kenma out of his hunch.
“You can’t ask that!” Kuroo raises his voice at his grandmother, making her pinch her mouth shut, bringing out the lines in her face.
“Tetsurou,” Grandpa admonishes.
“No, he’s right,” Saburou-san interrupts. “Ma, it’s none of your business.”
Kenma’s not a child anymore, and he doesn’t want to be reduced to one by Akari-san, but he still can’t look anybody in the eye as he stands up. He can stay home while his parents are gone. It’s absolutely no issue. Kuroo will visit, and Kenma knows how to boil water for instant noodles. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Kenma-” Kuroo starts.
“Kenma-kun-” Saburou-san says.
Kenma slinks away all the same, shuffling quickly to the stairs with his breath thrumming uncomfortably in his chest. He hears the voices, but doesn’t listen to the words that are spoken in his absence. They all sound hurt. In Kuroo’s empty room, he bundles up his few things and isn’t surprised when he finds Kuroo standing in the doorway with his shoulders curved in and face drawn.
“You’re going home, right?” Kuroo asks, making Kenma look up from the jumble of charging cables coming out of the hastily zippered top of his backpack. “When are your parents back?”
“Two days,” Kenma says.
“Can I come?”
Kuroo wouldn’t usually ask. He wouldn’t need to. He wouldn’t need the explicit permission. Kenma nods, and Kuroo leaps forwards to shove his laptop, clothes, and volleyball back into his duffle. It’s inevitable anyway, Kuroo coming over. The time Kuroo has spent in Kenma’s room is far longer than the time he hasn’t.
Saburou-san meets them at the bottom of the stairs, but doesn’t try to stop them. Kenma slips past and avoids looking anybody in the face. Kuroo toes his sneakers on, facing his father. There is nothing but silence coming from the dining room.
“Don’t worry about it,” Saburou-san says. “Whatever Ma might say.”
“Thanks, dad.” Kuroo nods. “I’m going to stay with Kenma tonight.”
“I thought you might.” Saburou-san hesitates, then claps Kuroo on the shoulder, squeezing it. For being a son of a family with such a polite distance between even the closest of them, Kuroo certainly likes to get close to Kenma. “I’ll talk to Ma. Explain it to her.”
“Don’t,” Kuroo says. Standing in the genkan, Kuroo has to face up to his father.
“You’re my son,” Saburou-san says. “It’s in the job description.” He’s doing a Kuroo thing with his face—the same face Kuroo sometimes held for underclassmen in the volleyball club. Kenma doesn’t understand how they make their faces do that. “Thanks for visiting, Kenma-kun.” He peers around Kuroo at Kenma, who shrinks back, flattening against the front door.
“Thanks for having me,” he mutters, face down.
“Night, Grandpa, Grandma!” Kuroo calls past his father. “I’ll come by before I go see mom.”
The air outside is cold—dry and staticy. The kind of weather that makes Kenma’s hair stick to everything and become a ball of fluff when he pulls off his hoodie. For the short trip home, he doesn’t bother with his beanie, and Kuroo doesn’t even bother closing his coat, letting the wind that travels the short corridors between the houses into the hollow of his throat again. He looks distant and very tall in the dark of the evening.
“Are you?” Kenma says quietly at the gate of his home.
“What?” Kuroo comes back from a distance.
“Gay?”
“Well, I mean...” Kuroo shrugs one shoulder, looking at Kenma with an expression he can’t quite fathom. “Yeah.” He rubs the back of his head, looking off again. “Are you? You don’t have to answer.”
Akari-san certainly seems to think Kenma is. “They think I made you gay,” Kenma says instead, standing still under the motion-detecting light of the electric doorbell. It takes thirty seconds to turn off if there’s no more movement. His skin is full of needles from the way Akari-san had looked at him. “She thinks so.”
“She’s wrong.” Kuroo opens the door. He’s long had the key.
It’s dark inside except for the multicoloured lights on the Christmas tree in the living room, reflecting off the many shiny surfaces. There’s no floor furniture or tatami. No sliding doors or kotatsu. Kenma’s father doesn’t cook rice in a clay pot, but uses an automated rice cooker. The fridge has a smart panel on it; the bathtub has access to the intercom.
“Kuro,” Kenma says, stopping him in the genkan. The lights create a tiny oscillating highlight in Kuroo’s eyes, catching on the tab of his coat’s zipper, like Kenma’s words are catching on his teeth.
“Kenma,” Kuroo says when Kenma hesitates.
It’s very quiet inside, so Kenma speaks even lower than normal. “She looked at me like she hated me.” He hadn’t run because she had asked if he was gay. It’d been the rejection in her face.
“Yeah.” Kuroo’s voice cracks. “You’re not even- I mean- Kenma.” He looks so helpless, face crinkled in disappointment, unable to say anything else.
Kenma sits on the edge of the genkan to stare at his shoes. He doesn’t need to unlace them; he’d replaced the laces with elastic ones for expediency. He presses the soles of his feet together, and Kuroo sits next to him, duffle bag in his lap. Their bulky outer layers press and crinkle together, but there’s little warmth that seeps through.
“Are you okay?” Kuroo says after a moment, fingers digging into the seams of his bag. Kenma watches them, listens to the creak of plastic under Kuroo’s straining grasp. Kenma has little ability in comfort, so he just looks at Kuroo’s hands until Kuroo says, “Kenma”, right by his ear.
It was the speed at which he’d become an outsider again. In an instant. “You raised your voice at her.”
“Are you worried she might spank me?” Kuroo says with utterly fake light-heartedness. “Are you worried about me?” he says then, quietly, pulling on the zippers of his bag. “Don’t be. I’m fine.”
“You told your family you’re gay.”
“And I’m fine about it.” Kuroo tilts his head, then rests his cheek on his palm, looking sideways at Kenma. There’s a wedge between his eyebrows, which Kenma only sees briefly as he flicks his gaze at Kuroo and away. Kuroo’s other hand stays at its restless task of trying to pick apart the duffle bag. “Do you know why?”
Kenma shakes his head once, looking down at his knees.
“Because you kissed me.”
The swell of embarrassment doesn’t come as a surprise. “You kissed me first,” Kenma mumbles. The thorned shrub of anxiety around his ribs shivers and shudders in time with his heartbeat.
“Okay,” Kuroo says. “But you kissed me back.”
All volleyball players take a volleyball to the face once or twice or ten times over the course of playing. Kenma has an urge to send one at Kuroo’s face right now.
“Do you regret it?” Kuroo progresses onto playing with the zippers of his bag, ticking the puller down one pair of teeth at a time. He isn’t quite looking at Kenma, but slightly down, somewhere towards their knees. His mouth looks fragile without a grin. Breakable in its seriousness and uncertainty.
Kenma squirms, then butts his head into Kuroo’s shoulder. The anxiety can choke him later with its fear and desire-tipped spikes. “No,” he says. “I regret nothing.”
“That’s an admirable personal qua-” Kuroo babbles, his words cut off when Kenma bites the apple of his cheek. Not too hard. The skin yields under Kenma’s teeth as he bites down, his nose pressed into Kuroo’s temple. There’s warmth hidden against his scalp and under his skin. His hair smells like Ocean Breeze and salt. His cheek vibrates as he pushes out an exhalation. Kenma pulls back and looks at the faint imprint of his teeth on Kuroo, visible as little shadows in the dark. Kuroo’s eyes are wide and his lips apart like he wants to say something. He places his hand over the bite mark.
“Kenma,” he says, slightly shaky, then laughs croakily. “You know I have to go see my mom.”
“It’ll fade.”
“Not that,” Kuroo says, a newly formed grin transforming his expression into an unbearably smug and fond face. Smond, declares an imaginary Bokuto. “I mean I only have a few days with you before I have to go.”
“So make more time for me when you come back,” Kenma mutters, only slightly resentful, but Kuroo’s eyes are alight again. He leans in, makes a questioning noise, then kisses Kenma, his hand curling around the back of Kenma’s neck. Kenma’s mouth fills with saliva at the thought of more kisses like this. More bites. More Kuroo. His claws are curved for a reason. They hold on.