Work Text:
I thought you thought of me better
Someone you couldn't lose
You said, "We're not together"
So now when we kiss, I have anger issues
– Casual, Chappel Roan
Breakfast, a misunderstanding
Brazilian singer-songwriter Chico Buarque was right when he said “ God is a funny guy / And a merry prankster ”. At least that is what Kuroo concludes, when his life turns upside down on a Tuesday morning.
In hindsight, he should have known that something like this would happen. Life had been too good to be true so far, before 7:48 am.
Life before 7:48am is this: he is at Kenma’s apartment, because he is always at Kenma’s apartment and the only reason why he hasn’t fully moved in (yet) is because he wouldn’t be able to afford sharing bills evenly with his internship salary. Not that Kenma would care, anyway, but Kuroo does, so he keeps on the charade of having two entire drawers for his clothes and a shelf for his skincare and knowing Kenma’s kitchen by heart because he is the only one that uses it, while also having some of his clothes (the ones that he rarely uses) back home and taking the longer commute back once or twice a week at most to have dinner with his dad and grandparents (usually when Kenma does overnight streams).
For the most time, however, Kuroo stays at Kenma’s apartment and follows the same routine, perfected with time, mushy with tenderness like meat falling off the bone.
Life before 7:48am is this: Kuroo is a senior in University and doing well enough in his internship that he might be hired for a full position soon. When that happens, his first action will be to officially move in with Kenma. Kenma, his best friend of over a decade and his boyfriend of 5 months, though everyone is saying they’ve been acting like a married couple for years now.
Kuroo’s routine is simple. He wakes up at 6, goes for a run, comes back by 6:45, has breakfast, showers and gets ready to leave by 7:30. He cleans the kitchen and makes breakfast for Kenma, who gets to drag himself out of bed a little later for his own classes (“Only psychos sign up for 9am lectures, Kuro” – he had told him multiple times before).
Life at 7:48am is this: Kuroo watches Kenma stumble out of their room and sit on the kitchen counter where Kuroo has placed a bowl of fresh rice and a simple omelette for him and a fruit juice he got for Kenma to give him a sweet kick as a treat for waking up. He presses a wet kiss to his left temple, and whispers “good morning, baby”, which Kenma mumbles something incoherent back but that Kuroo has chosen long ago to interpret it as “Morning, Kuro”.
Kuroo takes two steps and crosses the tiny kitchen of the boy's apartment when Kenma speaks, voice hoarse from sleep, and turns Kuroo’s world in its axis.
“You don’t have to make me breakfast every day, you know? You’re not my mum, or my boyfriend.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh.” Kuroo says, numbly.
Life at 7:49am is this: Kuroo is a fool that has deluded himself into thinking his childhood best friend was also in love with him, when he had only been horny and thought they had a convenient arrangement.
Life at 7:49am is hell. At 7:50am, it is not much better, so Kuroo forces himself to keep moving. He is good at that, moving, acting like a person.
He puts on his shoes and pulls on his backpack. He picks his keys up from the handle and pauses, swallows dryly before speaking.
“I’m sleeping home tonight.” He says, hoping Kenma will be too sleepy to notice the strangled tone, the tears creeping up. He feels dumb to even announce it. Kenma probably is annoyed that he is here all the time anyway.
“Ok.” Kenma says, a little puzzled but overall nonchalant, unaffected. “Tell your family I said hi.”
Kuroo smiles at him, lips stretched unnaturally. His nose burns. He teeth ache in his mouth.
“Of course. Gotta go now, have a good day!” He says, before leaving in a hurry.
He makes it all the way to Nezu station, onto the platform. Kuroo watches his train approach before turning around and making a beeline against the movement towards the male toilets and throwing up his entire breakfast. He heaves once or twice after before standing up again, washing his mouth in the sink and making his way back to the platform.
The clock ticks 8:25am. Kuroo is late for class.
Mandarins, summer-sweet
Kenma had been renting his own place ever since his second year at uni, when his streaming had started to take off and his nocturnal activities became too noisy to conceal from his parents. He made a decent amount of money, and his parents were happy to help him out with other bills, proud of their once anxious introverted child now an independent university student that was making a name for himself.
Like everything else in Kenma’s life, Kuroo had been right there.
Kuroo had helped him calculate the possible costs and apartment hunt and convince the Kozume’s that this was a good idea. Kuroo had helped him clean and pack, and then unpack and clean again.
The same way he had helped Kenma study for exams when they were in school. The same way he had helped Kenma during his first day of High School, when he got there a year later. The same way he had helped Kenma come out to his parents as trans and then gay. The same way he had helped Kenma when he travelled to get top surgery and started taking hormones.
Kuroo had held his hand when they were 6 taking their vaccines the first time, the huge needles seemingly terrifying. Kuroo had been the one to give him his first testosterone shot. It made sense then that he was the one holding onto the second key to Kenma’s house. That his favourite food occupied as much space in the cabinets as Kenma’s. That everything in Kenma’s life had a Kuroo-shaped hole in it and vice versa.
It had felt natural, then, when Kuroo had started sleeping there more and more often, after a long day hanging out with Kenma - either talking and playing games together or just quietly doing their own thing, existing in each other's orbits. It had felt natural, when Kuroo had shown up with a pack of Asahi super dry at the end of the previous semester, when their finals were officially over and Kenma had just achieved a new milestone on his channel. They put on some anime they had both watched before on TV, ate greasy, American inspired pizza, and drank too much. Afterwards, Kuroo had peeled a mandarine for both of them and in his slightly alcoholized state he had hand fed the pieces to Kenma, his fingers slick against Kenma’s pink mouth, his lips closing around his fingertips sucking on the fruit juices. Natural.
It had felt natural, to lean their bodies against each other, close and warm and just a tiny bit tipsy. Giddy from alcohol, and the knowledge of freedom after exams and the beginning of summer.
It had felt natural to bicker about the characters, a discussion they had had a thousand times. Natural to lean forward, voice teasing and just a little husky, so close that it made more sense to whisper. Natural to make eye contact, to let their eyes drag down to each other's mouth, to smirk and lean even closer until their noses lightly bumped. Natural as their breaths mixing together, mumbling nonsense about dumb decisions that were not dumb at all. Natural to give in and press their lips together.
Kuroo doesn’t remember who kissed who, who leaned in first, who opened their mouth first. What he remembers is this: He had loved Kenma before he knew what love was. He understood he was in love with Kenma at some point during his first year of college, the year they had spent the largest amount of time apart ever since they had first met, only seeing each other on weekends. He had waited for a sign, terrified of messing this up, messing them up. He remembers feeling relief, feeling stupid for even thinking something could mess up him and Kenma.
What he remembers is this: Kenma gasping against his mouth, fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. He remembers Kenma asking him for more, and he remembers giving and giving and giving – everything Kenma ever wanted. He had never told him no before, he wasn’t about to start now. He remembers every sound Kenma made, how he called his name onto the dark living room lit up by the TV, as Kuroo took him apart on the couch.
He remembers waking up pressed together on Kenma’s bed the next morning and doing it all over again. He remembers never stopping ever since. His days started with morning breath kisses and ended with Kenma climbing on top of him, tangling their limbs together before falling asleep way too late into the night. It had been a gradual change, but expected in a way. They had been gravitating around each other for so long now, the lines between platonic love and something else blurred beyond recognition, it was a long time coming, Kuroo felt. Him and Kenma. Natural. Meant to be.
That year, summer had dragged itself, tasting like the sweetest mandarins and late night snacks and Kenma, always Kenma.
Lunch, a confession
The clock ticks 13:15 when he can’t hold it in any more.
His first class had been a blur. The second one, the same thing. He had made it all the way to lunch break, feeling numb. The world felt hazy, a loop of Kenma’s words playing in the background, surrounding him like mist, mocking him,
Not my boyfriend, not my boyfriend, not my boyfriend, not my boyfriend
Well, what the fuck was Kuroo, then, if not his boyfriend? With the kissing and the caring and the basically living together? What were they supposed to be, if not a couple? Fuck buddies? Casual? Kuroo Tetsurou didn’t have a single casual bone in his body. Kenma knew that. Kenma knew Kuroo. He couldn’t understand how Kenma could… No, that wasn’t it. Kuroo couldn’t understand how he himself had been so careless with his own heart. Why had he ever believed that Kenma would feel the same way towards him? Something more than his best friend, maybe conventionally attractive, who was at the right time and place.
In his mind, he maps over every man and fictional character Kenma had ever crushed on – beautiful and bright and exciting, all of them. Interesting too, people Kenma felt challenged by in a way or another, people he wanted to pick apart for his understanding, for the fun of it. The curiosity.
Kuroo looks up, sees his reflection on the dirty microwave of the office kitchen. His hair is messy from constantly running his fingers through it because of stress. His eyes are a little sunken even though he makes sure to sleep enough every night, and he still has some acne scar on his cheeks from his teenage years, the result of basking in sweat for so long in between games. In truth, beautiful was not a word he would use to describe himself. Charming, sure, when he tried. Witty, maybe, although he knew he came off as cocky and annoying to some. He liked teasing a lot, making smart-ass comments for the fun of it, riling people up. Some people liked it, were attracted to it. But did they find him interesting? Did they want to learn more about him?
It was an unfair question to pose with Kenma in mind, the one person in the entire world that knew him best, so well that sometimes Kuroo felt like he didn’t even have to say anything. Kenma would just understand him, by looking at him, by knowing him.
Maybe that is why he never considered Kuroo his boyfriend, despite everything else happening. Because he actually knew Kuroo, had seen him inside out, and therefore was not actually attracted to him. Kuroo was not interesting or alluring to him, he was just convenient.
Something bumps strongly against his shoulder, a snapping noise repeats again and again somewhere around him, and Kuroo startles, being pulled out of his thoughts.
“Earth to Kuroo, helloo” Oikawa snaps his fingers quickly, hand centimetres off his face. Kuroo stares at him annoyed before pushing his hand away. Oikawa only grins, happy to have achieved his goal of being a nuisance, Kuroo assumes.
“Where even are you, bro. I called you like three times.” Bokuto whistles with a chuckle, opening his own bento box. Kuroo stares at it, the neatly arranged food. He knows for a fact, at some place on the other side of town, Akaashi is having a similar meal because he can’t cook for shit, so Bokuto always packs food for the both of them. He knows whatever Oikawa is having was probably reviewed and approved by Iwazumi, if it wasn’t cooked by the both of them in their kitchen, in between kisses and tender bickering.
Kuroo exhales slowly, feels himself choke a little.
“Kenma said I’m not his boyfriend.” He blurts out before he can stop himself. Bokuto blinks at him, owlish, Oikawa chokes on his coffee.
“You mean as in, like, he proposed?” Bokuto asks, sounding excited, and Kuroo barks out a laugh, sharp and humourless. It’s not funny at all, but he can’t stop. His body folds forward from the strength of it, his abs feeling tight, and he laughs until he feels the tears running down his face. And then he is sobbing, pathetically, against the plastic table.
“No, no” He says, cheek pressed against the table, sadness in his eyes. “I mean as in, he never saw me as his boyfriend at all. Like everything we’ve been doing for the past months has been just casual sex to him or something, I guess.”
“Oh, Kuroo…” Oikawa says, and his voice is so full of pity that Kuroo feels the need to close his eyes. If he had it his way, he would dig a hole in the ground of the office kitchen and hide himself there forever.
“That is insane, you guys literally live together! You’re the most married people I’ve ever met. You always have been.” Bokuto says, and Kuroo hums, eyes still closed. He remembers clear as day how bright Bokuto’s eyes had been when Kuroo told him. He had texted him to meet him at the subway station in Ginza, and then instead of going to work, he had grabbed him by the elbow and dragged Bokuto to one of the nice restaurants nearby – the type of restaurants their internship supervisors went to. When Bokuto questioned, Kuroo told him they were celebrating him finally getting his shit together and getting into a relationship with Kenma. Bokuto had been ecstatic, of course. He had been watching Kuroo pine for his best friend for almost a decade now, all of their friends had been holding their breath on when it would finally happen.
Fools, all of them. Kuroo, the clown king, with a crown and red nose. The biggest joke of it all.
“Yeah, well…” Kuroo lets out another wet chuckle. “Guess not. We are just…Friends. Friends who fuck.”
“Maybe it’s a misunderstanding! Iwachan and I used to have those all the time before we got over ourselves. Did you talk to him about it?” Oikawa asks, reaching over to pat his hair, an act of pure sad affection.
“God, no.” Kuroo stands straight again, vehemently shaking his head. Bokuto passes him some napkins and Kuroo accepts them. “Can you imagine how fucking embarrassing? Can you imagine the way he would look at me? No, he… He can never know.”
“But—”
“No buts. If anyone asks about it, I’ll just say I was joking when I told them we were together or something, see if they believed it. It was just… A big old joke.”
Like my life, he completes in his head.
“Kuroo, I really think–”
“Bokuto.” Kuroo turns, his eyes hard and unwavering. “I’m serious. Kenma can not know that my loser ass thought we were together. It would ruin everything.”
“More than it already has?” Oikawa asks, and it breaks Kuroo a little. His own words thrown back at him.
On the streets of Ginza, after work with their bellies full of sickly sweet coffee, Kuroo had smiled bright and full of joy and confessed –
“He has ruined me for anyone else. I don’t think I could ever love someone else the way I love him. I don’t think I could touch someone else now that I’ve had him. It’s all I want.”
All he wanted: the illusion of being loved back.
“Yeah.” Kuroo’s says, voice breaking in the middle. “I can pretend I don’t love him. I’ll move on, I just… I just need some time and I’ll move on. It will be okay, as long as he doesn’t know. No reason to make him uncomfortable, too.”
“If you say so.” Bokuto says, although he clearly does not agree.
The clock ticks 14:37. Kuroo stands up, still hazy. Oikawa passes him a cup of coffee, which he drinks without tasting. They clean their now empty bento boxes, and move on with their day.
No dinner, silence
[from: Kyanma]
where r u
[from: Kuroo T.]
Home. Gonna stay here.
[from: Kyanma]
again?
[from: Kuroo T.]
Yeah, grandma misses me.
[from: Kyanma]
k
(...)
[from: Kyanma]
kuro
are u coming over this weekend
[from: Kuroo T.]
No.I have a lot of work to catch up on.
[from: Kyanma]
ah
k
(...)
[from: Kyanma]
new metal gear came out
wanna play together
[from: Kuroo T.]
I’m sure your viewers would love to watch you play that for them on stream
[from: Kyanma]
not what i asked
(seen 13:22)
(...)
[from: Kyanma]
catmeme.png
(seen 20:45)
(...)
[from: Kyanma]
volleyballmeme.png
(seen 5:37)
(...)
[from: Kyanma]
are you coming this weekend? i havent seen u in like 2 weeks
[from: Kuroo T.]
I don’t think so. Maybe I should spend more time here.
I’ve been taking too much of your own apartment anyway.
[from: Kyanma]
?
i dont care about that
you know you could move in if you wanted
[from: Kuroo T.]
Kenma
It’s ok
I just need some time, ok?
[from: Kyanma]
did i do something?
[from: Kuroo T.]
No. It was all me. Sorry.
I’m going through something. I’ll get over it soon, ok?
[from: Kyanma]
can i help?
[from: Kuroo T.]
Not really.
[from: Kyanma]
k
im sorry
[from: Kuroo T.]
Me too.
Mandarins, koi no yokan
When they first met, they had both been awkward. Kuroo, with his unruly hair and shaky hands. Kenma and his long, dark hair and big eyes. Even so, the pull had already been there. The tug, the consistent need to look, the buzzing beneath their skins, every word heavy in their mouths. Still, they were both quiet for the first two entire afternoons they were supposed to hang out. And then Kenma had introduced video games. And then Kuroo had introduced volleyball.
And then everything had changed.
Kenma is not sure how it happened, a change so gradual like the sky growing dark in a late summer evening, the light blue turning orange and pink and purple and dark before you even noticed.
One day, there was a new kid in his neighbourhood, pining Kenma in place with his stare and the next thing he knew they were tangled so tight together it was hard to separate one from the other. Kenma’s morning started with Kuroo showing up in his kitchen after breakfast, toothless grin and volleyball in hand, and ended with the both of them sharing mandarins in the Kozume’s backyard, knees scraped and fingers sticky.
With the years his routine had changed, adapted, but Kuroo had always been his one constant. The one to pick him up before and after school, the first and last person he saw besides his parents. The first and last person he texts, the first number he always saved on his phone, the first person he added in every social media. His first subscriber. The person that he shared most of his meals with, or at least the most delicious ones.
Kuroo is the one that dyes his hair. The one that cuts it too (it looks awful and Kuroo’s grandma laughs at their teary eyes as she fetches her scissors and fixes Kenma’s uneven cut into something shorter, cropped just below his chin like he had wanted it). He lets Kenma borrow all of his outfits without complaining, both before and after Kenma transitions. Years later, He holds Kenma’s hand extra tight when he comes out, he brings Kenma his favourite foods and force feeds him during surgery recovery, refuses to give him his game until he is fully satiated (“Your body needs nutrients to heal, Kyanma!” he chastises, and Kenma has to bite his inner cheek to not smile. Kuroo knows it anyway.)
Kuroo talks him through his first crush, when Kenma realizes he might have feelings for Hinata and then for Akaashi and then for a random K-pop idol with black hair and sparkly golden eyes. In turn, Kenma hears when Kuroo talks about every single relationship process he goes through - the giggly crushes to the romantic but private confessions to the sickly sweet honeymoon phase where Kuroo drops the words my boyfriend/ my girlfriend every other sentence to the tears of heartbreak. He watches Kuroo pick up the pieces of his own heart and glue them back together. He watches as Kuroo always moves on again, never stops, never looks back. Kenma lingers on his crushes, dwells on what ifs for weeks after, even when he realizes he no longer has feelings for the person. Kuroo just keeps on moving, goes to parties and games and arcades and the beach. Carries Kenma with him into the future.
Kuroo’s first year of college is the hardest for them, the first time in a decade where they are not glued to each other's side for most of the day. In fact, most weeks they barely see each other at all - one shared dinner on Wednesday, one study session together on Sunday, small bits and pieces. Time stolen together from the rush of adult life. The refusal to allow this dumb process of growing up to get in between them.
When Kenma gets his first apartment, Kuroo goes with him. Literally. The whole process he is there, picking furniture, painting walls, hanging shelves and then cooking dinner for the both of them after everything is done. One day he ends up sleeping over, his body stretched in long lines in the dark at fingers reach, and then it just keeps happening. It becomes routine. It makes sense – this is Kenma’s house and so Kuroo belongs there.
Kenma has never known a life without Kuroo. Every memory from the time before they met has either faded with time or emotionally altered to include fragments of the boy.
(Secretly, Kenma watches anime about characters that meet each other in every lifetime, meant to find each other, and finds fragments of Kuroo in it too. The both of them – cats, warriors, a mage and a demon, actors in a play, again and again and again).
When he first lets Kuroo lick into his mouth, he tastes like mandarins and their favourite beer, the perfect combination. Kenma likes it, the mixture of childhood and adulthood, both of it combined in Kuroo’s tongue, now in his. It’s cyclical, continuous, it makes sense, it’s long time coming. All of it, every warm touch, lingering fingers and tongue, the way Kuroo’s eyes stay glued to Kenma’s face during it all. The way Kenma covers his face, embarrassed by being seen, but when Kuroo tugs his hands away he doesn’t resist at all. Secretly, he wants to watch Kuroo’s face as he falls apart, too.
When Kuroo crawls up his body, when he enters him, when he kisses him again, looking drunk and cocky and full of joy – he tastes like Kenma. Kenma likes that even more.
Instant ramen, a realization
When Kuroo stops coming over, Kenma feels odd. When a week passes, the feeling becomes jarring. Kenma paces around his room, annoyed at his own anxiety, unable to hide his own estrangement to the hole left in his routine without Kuroo there. He considers reaching out more, considers showing up at Kuroo’s house and lie about going to see his own parents, but decides not to. Kuroo has never wanted space in his life, he has never set a boundary so sharp with Kenma. It feels unnatural to not be close to each other, especially after the past months. It feels unnatural to not know what is going on with Kuroo at all.
When he simply stops replying to Kenma’s texts, a tight knot forms at the base of Kenma’s throat, and it doesn’t let go. It keeps growing, larger and tighter, the longer it goes. They had been a two-headed creature for too long, now Kenma feels afloat, untethered.
When the silence treatment hits the one-month mark, Kenma snaps. He wakes up in the middle of his bed to an empty apartment that does not smell like coffee and breakfast, filled with silence, not a morning hum or song in sight. It’s too much, it’s too weird. Kuroo should be there. Kuroo should be talking to him. Life makes no sense without his presence in every room.
His first instinct is to just leave and show up to Kuroo’s class and demand he talk to him, but he reconsiders. His hair is messy and a little oily, and when he blinks, he knows there is a crust around his eyes. He doesn’t want to look like a mess the first time Kuroo sees him again – not that it matters too much, Kuroo has seen him in all different states and has never turned away from him (opposite to it, he has always greeted Kenma with that sharp smile that made him shiver a little), but still… Still. It feels important to look better than half human when they see each other again. Kenma wants to look reliable, someone that Kuroo can open up to, someone he can go back home to, instead of going back to his grandparents and holding things to himself.
So he showers, brushes his teeth, puts on a shirt Kuroo had left behind before shrugging a jacket over it because he knows Kuroo would complain if he walked around without one in the near autumn weather. He fidgets with his thumbs the entire way to Kuroo’s internship office, too anxious to play on his switch like he would usually do.
When he finds himself in front of the office, he feels stuck again. He has no idea which floor Kuroo actually works on, and surely he is not well known enough for the receptionist to be able to localize him. His fingers are hovering over the text pad of his phone, a message carefully typed out when a loud voice calls him.
“I was wondering when you were finally going to show up.” Oikawa says, smiling teasingly at him. His voice is hyper, filled with energy as usual, but there is an underlying tension that is easy to spot. It’s a scolding in disguise, and Kenma knows.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Kenma replies, petulant and useless. There is no reason for him to be here at all, unless he was hunting down Kuroo.
“Sure, of course not. You’re just casually fidgeting like a child that needs to go to the bathroom in front of the office because you feel like it.” He jokes, and Kenma rolls his eyes.
“Whatever. Can you tell me which floor he works on?”
“I could, but it wouldn’t matter anyway.” Oikawa shrugs. “Kuroo’s department had a meeting to oversee a partner’s new project today, they took him along. He’ll probably go straight home after.”
Kenma deflates immediately, sad and embarrassed. Frustrated most of all. Oikawa watches him, piercing owl eyes seeing way too much for his liking. Kenma has never enjoyed being stared at. He allowed Kuroo to do it because he had grown used to it, but every other pair of eyes made him want to crawl out of his skin. Oikawa sighed.
“C’mon, I’m on break now. Let’s get coffee, and you can explain to me what the hell was going through your mind when you fucked things up.” He said, already walking away. Kenma gawked behind him, rushing to catch up.
“What do you mean I fucked things up? Kuro is the one that just got super awkward out of nowhere and ghosted me!” He protests, and Oikawa stares at him like he doesn’t believe him.
It’s a little jarring, to be judged and scrutinized by someone like Oikawa Tooru. Kenma hadn’t interacted with him much before, they hadn’t crossed paths until Oikawa and Kuroo had both ended up in the same classes on their freshmen year of college. Kenma’s initial impressions of him were mostly through stories passed down from Shoyou, and then occasionally mentions during Kuroo’s daily university tales. In the first case, Oikawa had been this force of nature, terrifying and legendary, witty and observant, with careful precision. In the second batch of stories, he had been this annoying, impertinent guy who talked too much and looked cool but was actually weirdly nerdy. The first time Kenma had met Oikawa was when Kuroo had taken him to his first college party. Oikawa had shown up with the tightest skinny jeans that you could see the band of his neon green alien patterned underwear. He had drunk too much and cried on Kuroo’s shoulder about “stupid iwachan” and “his stupid big muscles”. It had been a bit pathetic, and then Oikawa had just been there, being funny and immodest and oddly chronically online but in a completely different way from Kenma. It had been easy to forget all of Shoyou’s stories about him, until that very moment. Being stared down with a cold gaze, in the middle of the afternoon in the busy streets of Ginza, Kenma was suddenly very aware of why Oikawa had once been known as the Great King – Not only because of his talent in the court, but because of his unwavering judgment of others.
“And you think that nothing happened to cause that?” Oikawa huffs at him, as they make their way to the nearby konbini. There, he goes straight to the protein meals in the fridge section and Kenma grumbles his way through the instant ramen aisle. He combs through the days before Kuroo left, before things had turned so sourly awkward between them, this new-found distance. He briefly remembers the wet good morning kiss he had received and how he missed it, his ears becoming warm. Kenma shakes his head, finishes paying and preparing his ramen and makes his way to the table where Oikawa is already sipping on a cappuccino protein shake.
“What did Kuro tell you?”
“Everything.” Oikawa replies, wiggling his eyebrows at him. Kenma widens his eyes and briskly looks away when Oikawa, shamelessly. “Seriously, Kenma. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
“Akaashi is the smart one.” He replies automatically.
“True, Akaashi truly has the beauty and brains.” Oikawa pondered. “No clue how Bokuto bagged him.” He says, as if he wouldn’t take a bite of anyone who dared to disrespect any of his friends. Kenma suspects that if Akaashi had hurt Bokuto like he had hurt Kuroo, his beauty would not save him from Oikawa’s lashing tongue. “But out of the two of you, you were supposed to be the smart one. The observant one. So tell me how you missed this?”
The smart one. The observant one. Nekoma’s brain. Kuroo had always called him like that, had built a new team with Kenma in mind, with him as the centre, based on his intelligence, his ability to not miss anything. And now, years later, when volleyball was a warm memory, Kenma is lacking, failing the both of them in the process. What a terrible, bitter irony.
Does Kuroo regret it? Does he wish he hadn't spent so much time focused on Kenma? Hadn’t gone so out of his way through their entire lives to make sure Kenma was included? Does he wish their lives and limbs weren’t so tangled together?
Does he hate Kenma? Does he regret him?
“Hey.” Oikawa calls out again, and Kenma looks up. Oikawa squints, watches him carefully, once again and then sighs. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
Kenma shakes his head, ashamedly slurps on his noodles.
“You need to get your shit together, Kenkun. Why did you say he was not your boyfriend?” Oikawa inquires, jabbing a finger on his shoulder.
“Because he isn’t?” Kenma replies, gags a little on the sauce of his food with surprise at the question.
“Kenma, darling…Kuroo is practically married to you.” Oikawa tells him like he is stupid, and maybe he is.
Truth is the lines were always a bit blurred in between them, too affectionate for the regular platonic title, but they had never crossed any lines and so Kenma didn’t think too much about it. Ever since they had kissed once and then never stopped, there hadn’t been any mentions of changing their relationship status, so he continued not thinking too much about it – Which is to say: Kuroo hadn’t taken the lead to change things, and Kenma had always been more than happy to tag along with whatever he decided was best.
Things had changed, of course, but they also hadn’t. It had felt so natural that Kenma hadn’t thought too much of it. They hung out, they kissed, they ate together, they cuddled, they played games and talked about everything and nothing at all, and they had sex. They were constantly tangled in each other, but like they've done it for years now without a label so who is to say that is a relationship or not. How was he supposed to know?
When he says it out loud, Oikawa practically barks at him.
“How were you supposed to not know? How often are you having sex and living in domestic bliss with your friends?”
Not often at all. Never, was the actual answer.
“How did you miss this? How could you think you two were platonic?”
This time, at least, the answer comes easy, based on years of knowledge.
“Because Kuro has always been loud about his relationships.” Kenma states, simply. “He loves titles, he loves posting about it, he loves big gestures. He loves being a boyfriend, and he is loud about it. Whenever he was dating someone in the past you couldn’t go a whole day without hearing ‘my girlfriend did this’, ‘my boyfriend did that’. He never called me his boyfriend.”
Oikawa, for the hundredth time in the past half hour, stares at him like he is stupid. It’s a humbling feeling.
“Are you dumb? Kuroo doesn't have to use my boyfriend to refer to you because he has been calling you ‘my Kenma’ for like a fucking decade now.”
Kenma stares at him, the world becoming sharper, clearer. The image in front of him is bright like the sun, shiny in all its corners.
Kuroo kissing him first. Kuroo never bringing him flowers but getting him trinkets of all of Kenma’s favourite video game characters. Kuroo not buying him chocolates on white day but making sure the fridge is always stocked with Kenma’s favourite foods. Kuroo not getting him matching rings but pulling him closer whenever they lay down to sleep or watch a movie. Kuroo posting photos of him on his Instagram feed. Kuroo wearing bouncing ball merch all the time. Kuroo talking about him so often that every person he introduces Kenma to already knows who he is.
“God, I am so fucking stupid.” He sighs and for the first time in the gloomy afternoon, Oikawa laughs.
“Yeah, took you long enough.” He giggles, throws away the trash of both of their meals. “Also, for the record, he has never called you his boyfriend to your face, and to your face only. Everyone from our social circle in uni thinks you guys are a sneeze away from tying the knot, it’s sickening.”
What a horrifying thing, to be late to your own party. What a wonderful thing to know there was a party at all.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“I mean, you would have figured it out eventually, I think.” Oikawa says, as they make their way back to the office. Kenma shrugs.
“Maybe, but I still feel like it’s too late. I can’t believe how mad at me he must be.”
“I don’t think it’s possible for Kuroo to be mad at you, Kenma. He is mostly sad, and disappointed in himself. He thinks he read things wrong and deluded himself into thinking you liked him back when you didn’t.”
“But I do! I-” He cuts himself. Love is a big, heavy word. A word Kenma hasn’t really said out loud before. Oikawa smiles at him, all knowing.
“Save it for when you see him. Don’t worry, he will tell me all about it later.” He teases, and Kenma rolls his eyes at him.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this serious.” He comments, and it’s Oikawa’s turn to shrug.
“Kuroo is one of my best friends.” He states, oddly sincere. A simple fact.
‘He is also my best friend.”
“I think we both know he is something else to you, the same way you’re something else to him.” He winks, and Kenma feels himself blushing again.
“Maybe.” Kenma admits, meekly.
“Then you should go find Kuroo and tell him that.”
Kenma nods. He watches Oikawa make his way through the shiny glass doors and then turns on his heels, makes his way to the subway, his steps much more certain than they were earlier. As he waits for the train, he opens his phone again. His fingers hover once more before pressing send.
[from: Kyanma]
I need to talk to you.
Mandarins, black coffee, every morning after
When Kuroo gets home from his internship, he is jittery. Kenma’s message was the first thing he had seen when he left the meeting, and he felt like a pile of anxiety ever since. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, this silence. That eventually Kenma would want answers – which was fair, Kuroo supposes. Sure, he broke Kuroo’s heart, but it’s not like Kenma knew that. He didn’t even know Kuroo had created an entire fantasy world in his own head, it wasn’t his fault that he had accidentally revealed the truth to him and in the process shattered his dreams. To him, it had been just another normal day, and then his lifelong best friend/fuck buddy had gone ghost mode for no reason.
Kuroo’s colleagues had invited him out for drinks after the meeting, but Kuroo had politely declined and made his way home. He knew he had to face his own fear and just face Kenma again. Not tell him the truth, of course not, but apologize. Tell him whatever he was going through was over now and that was it, he was over it.
He wasn’t, of course. He was very much still helplessly in love and broken-hearted over it, a month of nothing had done not a dent in his emotions. But that did not matter. His friendship with Kenma was too precious to risk, too important. Kuroo would just brush past it. He would tell a lie about liking someone else or something, look for an excuse to never kiss Kenma again to not deepen the curse and protect his own heart. It would be okay. They would be okay. They had to.
He opens the front door to his grandma’s house still lost in thought, going through different possibilities of whatever he is going to tell Kenma later, after he has eaten and showered and feels less insane.
Except when he looks up, it is to find Kenma sitting at his family’s kotatsu, having tea with his grandmother, looking entirely at home, as if he belongs there.
(Of course he belongs here, the unhelpful voice at the back of Kuroo’s brain provides. This is Kuroo’s home, so it’s Kenma’s home too.)
Kenma looks up, and when they make eye contact, Kuroo feels himself shiver. God, he had missed Kenma like a lung.
“Hi.” He says, softly. Kenma offers him a shy smile, almost hesitant. Kuroo hates that he is hesitant, loves that he is smiling at him anyway. Loves that he is here.
“Hey.” Kenma says.
“Aah, Tetsu-kun! You’re home!” His grandma turns to him with a smile. “I was just telling Kenma-kun how hard you’ve been working lately.” She makes a move to stand up and Kuroo steps forward to help, shoes and all, but Kenma reaches first, stands up faster so he can help her. Kuroo wants to squeeze his own heart.
Instead, he takes off his own shoes, jacket and bag, and makes his way into the house.
“Go wash your hands. I’ll start making up dinner. And tell Ken-chan to try the hojicha I told you about, I’m telling him he looks like he hasn’t been sleeping properly!”
“Kenma hasn’t slept properly since he found out he could stay up all night playing video games if he muted the TV, obachan.” Kuroo tells her amused, but she simply waves him off with a hand over her shoulder, already focused on making what is going to most likely be way too much food. When he turns to Kenma, they are both serious.
“Do you want to go upstairs and talk?” Kuroo asks, and watches the movement of Kenma’s throat as he swallows tensely before nodding.
They move in silence, all the way through the stairs, the hallway, until it’s just the two of them in Kuroo’s childhood bedroom, door locked.
Kenma sits on Kuroo’s bed, fidgets with his fingers, looks anywhere but at him. All the bravado from earlier gone now that it was just the two of them.
“I’m sorry I’ve been absent.” Kuroo starts, being the bigger person because he believes he is the one that fucked things up in the first place.
“I’m sorry I said we weren’t boyfriends.” Kenma blurts out, and watches in real time as Kuroo freezes, his face growing paler, his spine stifling. Realization washes over him.
“Bokuto talked to you.” He says, not fully an accusation. Kenma shakes his head.
“Oikawa.” He explains, and Kuroo curses.
“Fucking Oikawa, oh my god. I should have let him drown on that trip to Odaiba last year.” He groans, pressing his hands against his face. Kenma tried not to laugh.
“He didn’t come after me. I went to your work place. He found me standing outside and decided to put me out of my misery.” He admitted with a snort. Kuroo offered him a sad smile in return.
“I’m sorry, Kenma. You weren’t supposed to know. I’ll fix it, ok? I’ll-”
“You should fix it.” Kenma agreed. He watches as Kuroo’s eyes fill up with tears and rushes to fix his own messy wording. “I mean, you never even asked me properly. To be your boyfriend, I mean. Don’t you think I deserve to be asked?”
Kuroo laughs, humourlessly.
“That is not a funny joke, Kenma.” He sniffs, brushing the tears away from his eyes.
“Who says I’m joking?” Kenma replies, more serious now. Kuroo looks back at him, surprise colouring his face. Hope too, although it is too faint and Kenma can’t have that. He stretches a hand out and watches as Kuroo hesitantly steps towards him, closer and closer until Kenma can touch him, can lace their fingers together. Kuroo sits on the floor in front of him, in between his knees. With his free hand, Kenma wipes away the remaining tears. “You should have told me.”
“I know.” Kuroo says with a sigh, leans his head against Kenma’s hand. His big cat, Kenma thinks fondly. “I just… At first, I didn’t think I had a chance. And then we started sleeping together, and it felt like a dream. It felt like everything had slid into place exactly how I wanted and needed to. I had you, we were happy. We were already practically a couple before, all we didn’t do was kiss. And then we were kissing, and that was it.” He opened his eyes to finally look at him again and smiled sadly. “I guess a part of me was afraid that if I did ask, then the dream would be over. You would wake up and realize you were in a relationship with me and come to your senses.”
“Come to my senses.” Kenma repeats back at him.
“Yeah. Realize that you could do way better.” Kuroo jokes and Kenma frowns.
“There is no better than you.” Kenma says, bluntly, annoyed that Kuroo would think otherwise. “Kuro, you are my favourite person. There is a reason why I spend all my time with you, why I want you over all the time, why I’ve been sleeping with you and no one else.”
No one else, never anyone else. Just him. Just them.
Kuroo stares at him in silent shock, and so Kenma takes a deep breath, takes the leap.
“Be my boyfriend.” He says, and Kuroo snorts at that.
“That sounds an awful lot like a demand.”
“Are you denying?”
“No!” Kuroo says and leaps up from the floor, tackling Kenma against his old mattress. “I’m your boyfriend, no take backs.”
Kenma starts laughing, ready to call him ridiculous, but then Kuroo is kissing him, and it’s been so long, too long. His lips are soft against his, but hungry too. It doesn’t take long for Kuroo to move them sideways, to let Kenma hook a leg over his hip so that Kuroo can hold him closer. A hand wrapped around his jaw, fingers reaching over to pull on Kenma’s hair just a little. When they find themselves in need of air, Kuroo pulls back and leaves warm, wet kisses on Kenma’s neck with just a hint of teeth. Possessive. He could leave a mark if he wanted to, Kenma wouldn’t deny him, even if they both knew he would whine later when he had to go out or stream. Maybe Kuroo could leave a hickey somewhere only the two of them could see, a secret, a treat for getting their shit together.
It would only be fair. That is what boyfriends do.
Boyfriends. They were boyfriends.
“I’ve never been someone's boyfriend.” Kenma whispers, into the darkness of the room.
It was true. Kenma had never been anyone's anything. A few kisses and make outs here and there, but he had never dared to go any further than heavy petting and caring messages. Intimacy was scary, opening up to other's was scary. It felt less scary if Kuroo was the one holding his hand, though. It didn't feel scary at all. Kuroo already knew him better than anyone and had never turned away from him, and Kenma had always trusted him to guide him, to be careful with his body, to be caring with him inside out – and he had been proven right.
“That’s because you've always been mine.” Kuroo says, mouth still hot against Kenma’s skin. It would be too bold of an affirmation if it wasn’t for the fact that it wastrue.
Kenma hates that it's true. Hates that he doesn’t hate it at all. It’s hard to think anything anyway when Kuroo’s lips are back on his.
“You’ve been plenty of people's boyfriend, tho.” Kenma complains when they pull away to breathe, his face scrunching up in distaste, and Kuroo laughs at him, deeply amused by the rare display of jealousy.
“That’s not even true, it wasn’t that many!”
“But it still stings.” Kenma almost whines, embarrassed by his own possessiveness, but the smile on Kuroo’s face makes it worth it.
Kuroo laughs at him, amused, and it makes Kenma want to push his face away. Makes him want to kiss him quiet.
“What if I’m a terrible boyfriend to you because you have experience with it and I don’t?”
“You’ll be the best boyfriend to me, because you are you and we are us. I love us. I want us to continue being us. It’s what I’ve wanted all along.”
“You say that now, but what if a month from now you realise you actually liked your exes way more than you like me?” He is just being petulant now, he knows. Difficult on purpose, riling up the two of them. Kuroo knows him too well, because he simply smiles, all teeth, and gets too close for comfort.
“Kyanma, do you honestly think I have ever loved anyone the way I love you?” He whispers, their lips almost brushing.
Kenma ponders for a second, and his chest grows with the warm satisfaction of knowing Kuroo is right. Even when he had been in relationships, even when he had been in love with someone else, Kenma had always been his person, his number 1.
The two of them, from the start.
“Tetsu-kun, Ken-chan, it’s dinner time!” His grandma called. Kuroo smiles at him, leans forward and steals another kiss before getting up and stretching a hand to Kenma. He laces their fingers together as they go down the stairs.
“Obachan,” Kuroo calls as they sit side by side on the kotatsu. “Kenma is my boyfriend.” He says, proudly, as his grandma serves them portions of soup and rice and meat. She hums, not paying him too much attention.
“I know. You told me.” She says as if he is being silly, and remains focused on serving them. Kenma turns to Kuroo already smirking, but stops when he notices the confusion on his face.
“Well, no, now it’s actually… Wait, when did I tell you?” He searches his memory, trying to remember if in a burst of insanity he had told her about it.
“When you were 11.” She states, sitting by them to eat. “Honestly, Tetsu-kun, I’m surprised you forgot. You said you were going to marry him.”
“Eh?” Kuroo and Kenma let out in union, baffled by her words. Kuroo’s grandma remains unbothered, simply tasting her soup and nodding to herself, satisfied with the taste.
“Ah, this was so long ago, let me see… There was a shooting star. You made a wish and when I asked you what it was, you said you wanted to have Kenma in your life forever. I said you had to be really good friends then. You asked ‘like you and ojichan’, and I said that ojichan and I were married, so you said “so I’ll marry Kenma”, and that was it.” She told them, paying no mind to the shock on their faces, how Kuroo’s eyes seemed to be bulging out of his head. “And you were always together anyway, even after Kenchan changed names and cut his hair and everything, so I just assumed you had followed through with your promise.”
At the end of the story, she finally looks up to the both of them and lets out a sight.
“Why are none of you eating? I didn’t spend so long cooking for you to just look at it. You are growing boys, eat, eat! You especially, Kenchan. Honestly, doesn’t Tetsu-kun cook for you? What kind of boyfriend is my grandson?”
Kenma starts laughing then, the sound filling out the room. Kuroo simply shoves a rice ball on his mouth to keep him quiet, and thanks his grandmother for the meal. When he brings the bowl of soup to his lips, however, Kenma winks at him, and he winks back, filled with unbearable joy.
Kenma spares him at the moment, but not for long of course. Later, in the bed they shared for so long, limbs tangled, he brings it up again.
“So… Marriage, huh.”
“Shut up.” Kuroo tells him, trying and failing not to smile.
“Those are big words, Kuro.” Kenma teases, lifting himself up on his elbows, hovering above Kuroo’s chest.
“I said shut up. Go to sleep, you look awful.” Kuroo says, eyes closed and pretending to ignore him.
“You say that, but you want to kiss me anyway.” Kenma jokes, and Kuroo opens one of his eyes to stare at him. Kenma smiles and Kuroo sighs.
“Hmm, maybe” He concedes, pulling Kenma’s body closer, wrapping his arms around his torso, so their chests are pressed together. “I guess the eyebags do have their charm.” Kuroo kisses him softly, longingly. Kenma kisses him right back, feeling so light, like they are floating.
When they pull apart, their lungs are screaming and their lips tingly.
“I’ll be expecting a ring the next time you leave me a packed lunch for me to take to class.” Kenma whispers and cackles when Kuroo huffs and bites his shoulder.
“I said shut up” Kuroo teases and pulls him closer, tucks him against his chest where Kenma can’t stare at the smile on his face. Feels Kenma smiling against his heartbeat. Allows himself, for the first time in weeks, to dream of the future.
A ring. A promise. A possible future. Not now, but one day.
One day, Kuroo will put a ring on it, sign the name on the paper, make sure there is no more possible confusion, no blurred lines. No signs of casualness in sight.
Dumb love, I love being stupid
Dream of us in a year
Maybe we'd have an apartment
And you'd show me off to your friends at the pier