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Kenma has a Friday night routine. It’s actually the same routine he has every day, but Friday nights are special because he lets himself open a new game with the upcoming weekend free for him to spend clearing it.
On this particular Friday, the new Monster Hunter game sits on his desk. The plastic makes a promising crinkling sound when Kenma starts to pick at the shrink wrap.
The night is young and Kenma is warm and comfortable after his bath, the hot water having done wonders for his sore muscles after volleyball practice. Kenma is admittedly a little surprised to find that he hasn’t been feeling a lack of motivation towards volleyball yet, even after the third years– Kuro retired.
That’s largely in part due to Karasuno and the way their last match ended.
“I wanna play another match with Nekoma soon!”
In the silence of the night, Shouyou’s voice rings bright and loud through his phone’s speaker, faintly echoing Kenma’s sentiments.
Kenma doesn’t talk to a lot of friends on the phone. He doesn’t talk to a lot of friends, period. But Shouyou likes to randomly call and talk his ear off about volleyball. Kenma doesn’t mind, since Shouyou doesn’t mind if he multitasks with his game console and the conversation is mostly one-sided. Shouyou’s happy to talk until he gets sleepy, and Kenma’s always been a bit of a night owl, especially when he’s starting a new game. They make a good match—
“I know! You guys should come to Karasuno next time!” Shouyou exclaims.
—most of the time. Until their differing levels of enthusiasm for volleyball enters the picture.
“Ah, I bet you’re thinking it’s a pain to come!” Shouyou catches on to the nature of his thoughts, sharp-witted as he becomes whenever it involves people slacking on volleyball. “Hey, don’t go quiet! I can’t tell if you’re there or not!”
“... Miyagi is really far from Tokyo–” Kenma begins to say, before his bedroom door creaks open.
Kenma doesn’t bother looking up from his game console. There are only two people in the world who would walk into his room without knocking: his mom when she catches him playing games at 3am and Kuro whenever he waltzes into his house like he’s a part of the Kozume family.
“Kenma,” Kuro greets warmly. There is a swish of plastic, then a familiar thud as Kuro sets a bag from the convenience store on the table – likely containing snacks and a can of sweet coffee for him. “You’re even playing games while talking to Karasuno’s Shrimpy?” He sounds equally fond and amused.
“Oh, Kuroo-san!” Shouyou’s voice pipes up. “Hello!”
“Hey,” says Kuro, and the mattress dips under his weight.
(Friday nights are special because sometimes Kuro drops in after his prep classes, and sometimes he stays the night.)
“Then we’ll chat again sometime, Kenma! Goodnight!”
The line drops before Kenma can reply; Shouyou hangs up as easily as he’d rang. He’s really like a hurricane, Kenma thinks wryly.
“My bad,” Kuro says, as he scoots over. “Didn’t mean to cut your conversation short.”
That’s probably a lie. A half-lie, at least. Kuro wasn’t trying to have Shouyou hang up, but he isn’t apologetic about it either. Kenma watches from the corner of his eye, as Kuro makes room for himself in his cocoon of fluffy blankets. Kuro’s toes are freezing when they press against the back of his knees.
“You’re cold,” Kenma objects, though he doesn’t move away.
“I braved the snow after cram school to buy snacks to accompany your games,” Kuro whines, and the tip of his nose accidentally brushes against Kenma’s cheek as he sidles closer. “Shouldn’t you be nicer to me?” A puff of warm breath against the shell of his ear. Kenma suppresses a shiver.
“It’s not even snowing yet,” Kenma mutters.
Lately, Kuro’s been slightly pushier. A little more clingy than usual, Kenma thinks, as Kuro’s head falls against his shoulder. Like a cat that’s feeling particular affectionate. Kuro’s been acting this way at school too; an arm slung over Kenma’s shoulder when he locates him at the school store, a tousle of his hair when they pass each other in the corridors– Kuro hasn’t done anything that friends wouldn’t do with each other, but he’s just barely within the boundaries.
They’ve straddled the line between friendship and more for a long time, but the balance has been shifting ever since Kuro and the other third years retired from the club. It’s probably because Kuro’s parents want him to enroll in university first but Kuro doesn’t think it’s necessary. The arguments he’s been having with his parents about his career path must be taking a toll on him.
“Are you uneasy?” Kenma asks. A moment after the question leaves his lips, he does notice that all the context is in his head. But Kuro will understand what’s on his mind, as he always does. Besides, Kenma is too lazy to explain the whole story of how my mother heard your mother saying that you…
Kuro goes still for a brief moment, before he relaxes. When Kuro answers, it’s easy and breezy, and it’s an answer to a different question.
“Sure I am,” Kuro says. “You’ve called Shrimpy by his first name since you two met, and now you’re even having late night phone calls with him?” Something distinctively needling colors his tone. “We’ve known each other over half our lives, and you never do that with me.”
Kenma plays along. “There’s no need to call when you keep coming over anyway.” He lets Kuro change the subject, lets himself be dragged into Kuro’s pace, into a pointless distraction.
“Then what about the way you call him?” Kuro breathes.
Kenma continues to mash buttons on the console, and pretends he doesn’t notice the arm slipping behind his waist, how Kuro is snuggling closer until he’s barely sitting upright anymore. “That’s because Shouyou calls me Kenma.”
“I call you Kenma, too.”
“Shouyou is easier to say than Hinata.”
Kuro snorts. “And Tetsurou is much harder to say than Kuro?”
“That’s right,” Kenma lies, bald-faced. He doesn’t call Kuro by his first name, for very different reasons.
Kuro releases him and rolls over, opting to claim Kenma’s pillow instead. He goes quiet for a while. That in itself isn’t such a strange thing, except that—
“Do you like Hinata?”
—the use of his surname, rather than the usual playful ‘Karasuno’s Shrimpy’, makes Kenma pause.
Kenma considers his options: to agree, disagree, and to avoid answering altogether. The third option is fairly viable with minimal consequences – he’s tuned out Kuro often enough when he’s in the middle of a game.
“Yeah,” Kenma says instead, because that is also one truth. When he steals another glance, Kuro’s back is turned to him. A shame. He’s probably making an interesting expression. But Kenma isn’t cruel, and he gains nothing from having Kuro misunderstand the nature of his feelings for Shouyou.
“Shouyou’s trying something interesting again with his setter,” Kenma offers. “We don’t have his type in Nekoma.”
Even if Kuro is being rather unfair, probing at Kenma’s feelings without divulging his own.
Kuro hums, and Kenma lets the implication that he likes Shouyou as a volleyball player settle in.
“Then, what about me?”
Of course he likes Kuro. That’s not a question that needs to be asked. Kenma is pretty sure Kuro knows that too. Or at least, he must strongly suspect it.
“Kuro’s not particularly interesting or boring,” Kenma says, and because he’s been patiently watching for the monster’s tells, he neatly dodges an attack on the screen. “We spend so much time together. I’m used to you.”
That’ll change once Kuro moves out of home, though. They won’t live next to each other anymore, Kenma muses, and perhaps that could be enough reason to change the status quo.
Maybe they’ll be like the rest of the couples that formed just before the end of the school year. They’ll be two people pushed together by desperate words spoken in the heat of the moment, spurred on by a time limit, fierce and fragile. Maybe they’ll be sappy and hold hands, fingers intertwined all the time, kissing on the rooftop during lunch and all those stolen moments, determined to remain attached at the hip and make the most of whatever time they have left together before the entrance exams put space between them.
Kenma wonders if that’s what he wants.
“… Kenma?”
Kenma lifts his head. For the first time today, he turns to look at Kuro properly.
He looks at Kuro, who is starting to sit up to look back at him too. Kuro’s mop of dark hair is more mussed up than usual, uniform shirt and tie rumpled from all his fidgeting. There is a tinge of concern in his hazel eyes.
Kenma’s gaze drops. In a practiced motion, he pops out his current game cartridge, just to give his hands something to do. He swaps it out for the rhythm game he’s had for almost as long as he’s known Kuro, a game that he’d played so often in the past he knows the moves by heart; he wouldn’t miss any combos even if he took his eyes off the screen.
“Kenma,” Kuro begins, tone softly apologetic as if he’s sensed the disturbance he caused in Kenma’s thoughts, and Kenma hears his unvoiced concern. Has the ribbing gone too far?
Kuro is sitting cross-legged now, facing him with his chin resting atop the pillow still caught in his embrace. Eyebrows creased. Watching. Weighing his options the way Kenma’s weighing his own.
The air filling the space between them grows full and heavy, laden with expectations waiting to be realized.
There is another opportunity here, just as there have been many in the past. Opportunities for Kenma to lean forward, place his fingers against Kuro’s jaw, see what happens. Opportunities that Kenma had let slide because he didn’t have a reason to take them, just as he couldn’t find a reason to not take them.
Instead, Kenma had held his breath as such moments crept up to them and passed, and nothing had changed.
Just like how Kuro kept coming back even when Kenma stood him up to play video games. Kuro would come straight to his room and yell for him to get his ass out. It happened again and again, and eventually Kenma stopped wondering if one day Kuro would turn away and never come back.
“Is there anything you wanna tell me?” Kuro asks, in the sort of gentle tone one might use to avoid spooking a small animal, a tone that suggests that he’s here to listen.
It doesn’t suit Kuro at all. There is no trace of the usual Master of Provocation, and really, it shouldn’t be hard to say, even if Kenma’s never confessed or been confessed to before and doesn’t know how a confession would change his relationship with Kuro forever—
“Kuro,” Kenma finally says. “Stop squeezing my pillow like that. It’ll go out of shape.”
“Seriously? You waited this long just to say that?”
“Let go of my pillow.” Kenma refuses to be the one to take the first step. If Kuro wants something, he should just get it himself.
“No way,” Kuro says, a childish pout forming, before a hint of mischief enters his voice. “This is super comfortable to hug! Ah, I wanna sleep with this~” He makes a big show of hugging Kenma’s pillow to himself, nuzzling against it.
Kenma averts his gaze. “Gross. I’m going to change the sheets.”
“Ohh? Will you, really?”
Kenma’s skin prickles with embarrassment because he’s a guy too, and he’s been in love since forever, and thus obviously he’s had one or two dreams that Kuro doesn’t need to know (or unwittingly insinuate) about.
Kuro grins, toothy, eyes sharp. “Well?” he challenges.
The way he switches from teasing to serious to teasing again is almost infuriating, and at the same time it occurs to Kenma that he’d stopped focusing on his game at some point. The words GAME OVER are now flashing on the screen, and below it, the two options: Retry or Quit.
In real life, there’s a third option: stick to your guns.
Kenma scowls. “If there’s something you want to say, just say it.”
“I could say the same to you,” Kuro responds without missing a beat.
They stare at each other stubbornly, neither willing to back down first. It’s the same as usual, then. Three steps forward and two steps back. Kenma quirks a lip.
Kuro is just Kuro and he’s always there. They grow up, feelings change, people walk in and people walk out; people pair up and break up. Those faces become blurred memories and fade with time, but Kuro is a constant through it all, fitting in his life as easily as a game controller fits in his hands.
Surely, there’s a type of love that feels like being in a whirlwind, the kind that Kenma sees whenever he passes blushing girls and boys holding hands as they walk down the stairs.
Then there’s that other type of love that Kenma feels for Tetsurou; the kind where you wake up one morning because of the undignified snoring of your childhood friend and you look over at their sleeping face and imagine the cowlicks they’ll wake up with as you fall back asleep to their noise.
A love that’s always been. A love that feels so ordinary they sometimes feel the need to test it. Like a reminder that the world continues to spin even though they don’t feel dizzy.
Kuro’s gaze finally breaks away. He sighs and runs a hand through his unruly hair. “Sheesh. What the heck are we doing?”
“Who knows.”
He has no doubt that if there’s anyone in the world who his heart is safe with, it’s Kuro.
Kuro wouldn’t hurt him, not intentionally, no, never. But still, some things once changed, can’t return to the way they were. For better or worse, they would never be the same again. Kenma would mourn the easy silences, the ache in his chest as he watches Kuro from the corner of his eye, this version of Kuro who is slightly miffed and rubbing his nose, hinting at being more but not daring to take the leap.
The process is just as precious as the outcome. Kenma wants to cherish each step, however small, and Kuro is probably the same – except that he’s getting impatient. One day, things will inevitably change when one of them tires of waiting for the other to speak up. If it’s going to happen anyway, then there’s no need to rush things along.
Kenma clears his throat. “About the future,” he says as his attention returns to his game console. “Isn’t it fine to take your time with it?”
Until then, Kenma will be sitting in this spot. Kuro will go off to university or maybe he won’t. Either way Kenma will be waiting here, and Kuro will eventually gravitate back, until he is just close enough to look over Kenma’s shoulder at the screen and then some.
“I guess you’re right,” Kuro says, and his palm lands on top of Kenma’s head. Kuro ruffles his hair. “As expected of Nekoma’s brains.”
Although Kenma feels the moment of hesitation, he isn’t alarmed by the way Kuro leans over him, hand sliding down to cup the back of his neck, while the other wraps around Kenma’s wrist, tugging him towards a warm chest. Very quickly, Kuro plants a kiss, affectionate, against the crown of his head before releasing him just as abruptly.
“By the way, I’m staying the night,” Kuro continues casually, as he reaches for the snacks he brought. “Do you want the can of hot chocolate or coffee?”
His cheeks are pink.
”… You’re really not honest, Kuro.”
“I don’t wanna hear that from you.”