Chapter Text
Kenma woke up to his phone buzzing loudly on the table by his bed. He scrunched up his face and rolled over, wishing he had put it on do not disturb instead of vibrate. After a few minutes of trying to ignore the buzzes and them continuing anyway, he gave in and grabbed his phone, immediately knowing what all the fuss was about when he saw who the messages were from.
Group chat – cats and owls
7:07 am
Big owl : hey hey HEY!!!
good morning!
Big cat : morning bro
Little owl : you’re both up early for a Saturday
Big owl : sorry did I wake you up?
Little owl : it’s ok I should probably get up soon anyway
Big owl : well it is a very important day after all!
Big cat : yes yes it’s very exciting
Big owl : how does it feel to finally be living on your own from today Akaashi?
Little owl : it’s not on my own if I’ll be living with you three
Big owl : I know I meant just not with your family
Little owl : honestly I’m more worried about you two
Big cat : hey we’re full adults now there’s nothing to worry about!
Little cat : you guys are so loud do you know it’s 7am
Big cat : wow I’m impressed you’re awake I thought 7am was the middle of the night for you
Little cat : it is
Big owl : come on guys you have to get up soon, we have a big day of moving ahead of us!
Big cat : I’ll come over and get you in an hour Kenma
Little owl : fine
Today was the day the four of them were moving in together. Bokuto and Kuroo had spent their first year of university in a dorm together where they had had fun making new friends and getting into a healthy amount of mischief, but they had very much missed seeing their boyfriends every day. When Kenma and Akaashi had decided to go to the same university, the older boys had convinced them to come and live with them in a small two-bedroom apartment they had managed to find.
Kenma was secretly happy to be able to see Kuroo all the time again. Even though Kuroo probably already knew how he felt, he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of telling him directly. He was also looking forward to living with Akaashi since although they enjoyed each other’s company, they never really saw each other outside of volleyball unless Bokuto and Kuroo had dragged them along to something.
Then there was Bokuto. It wasn’t that Kenma didn’t like him, they were always friendly to each other, but Bokuto was loud and energetic and gave Kuroo stupid ideas, so he knew it was going to take some time to get used to.
Private message – Kuroo and Kenma
8:12 am
Kuroo : my dad’s car is outside, you can start bringing stuff down
Kenma : ok
They spent nearly the whole day transporting and unpacking their belongings and cheap second-hand furniture into their new apartment. By the time they sat down for a break in the living room, their living room, it was already past 7pm.
“I’m hungry,” Bokuto moaned.
“Same,” Kuroo agreed.
“I’m tired,” Kenma said.
“Should we order some pizza then?” Akaashi suggested.
“Yes!” Bokuto yelled.
Once the pizza had arrived, the room was quiet for a while until everyone had sufficiently recharged and filled their stomachs.
“Are you guys excited to be starting classes on Monday?” Bokuto asked.
“I guess so,” Akaashi said, “but it is a bit intimidating.”
“Yeah,” Kenma agreed, “especially when I haven’t done anything like video production before at school.”
“That’s true, my literature courses should be ok, but I don’t really know what to expect for the business ones,” Akaashi said.
“You’ll soon get used to it,” Kuroo assured, “but I’m kind of on the same page as you guys since I changed my major this year.”
“Oh yeah, you’re doing the same thing as Akaashi right?” Bokuto asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s so much better than science, what a snore-fest I can’t believe you stuck with it for that long.”
“Hey, you literally do science in health and physical education,” Kuroo pointed out.
“But that’s not real science like the boring chemistry stuff you were doing.”
“I still like science I just decided I didn’t want to do it for a job.”
“Because it was boring.”
“Well, you’re only at university as a backup if volleyball doesn’t work out.”
“Good thing volleyball will work out then!”
“Can you two please stop arguing,” Akaashi cut in, “it’s only our first day living together.”
“We’re not arguing,” Bokuto said.
“Yeah, this is just friendly teasing,” Kuroo agreed.
“Alright, but I think the teasing has gone far enough for today.”
“Ok Akaashi.” Bokuto pouted.
“Oh yeah,” Kuroo said, “have you looked at your timetable yet Akaashi? We should see if we have the same classes.”
“Oh yes, I have it on my phone.”
Kuroo moved over to sit next to Akaashi and they both got out their timetables to compare.
“Sweet, we’ve got all of them together except for the electives. Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” Kuroo said, nudging Akaashi’s arm with his elbow and grinning at him.
“Yes it would seem so.” Akaashi returned a small smile.
“Hey, no fair!” Bokuto cried.
“There’s no need to be jealous bro, you get to see him every day and share a room with him,” Kuroo pointed out.
“Still…” Bokuto pouted.
***
The four of them had been living together for a few weeks now, and they had mostly settled into their new daily life. Their classes were about to start getting busy, so Bokuto decided they should go somewhere fun before everyone started to get too stressed.
“How about we go ice skating?” he suggested. “I heard there’s a place not too far from here.”
“I didn’t know you could skate,” Akaashi said.
“I can’t but I’ve always wanted to try it!”
“I haven’t done it for a while but I used to do lessons as a kid, so it could be fun.”
“You did? Can you teach me?” Bokuto asked excitedly.
“I can try.”
“Kenma and I have been a few times, I’d be keen,” Kuroo said.
“Isn’t it a winter thing though?” Kenma asked.
“This place is open all year round,” Bokuto explained, “hopefully that just means there’ll be less people!”
“Oh ok, I guess that sounds fun,” Kenma said.
“Great, let’s go!”
Bokuto jumped up and hurried everyone to get ready. When they arrived at the ice rink (after 20 minutes of getting lost and Bokuto assuring everyone he knew where he was going), they were happy to see that there were only a few other people there.
“Sweet, we’ve nearly got the whole place to ourselves!” Bokuto exclaimed.
They put on their rented skates and made their way onto the ice. Kuroo and Kenma went first, Kenma holding onto his boyfriend’s arm to steady himself as they got used to it.
Bokuto however, was getting cold feet. Even though it was his idea and he had been excited to try it, now that he was in the strange feeling boots and having to step onto the slippery ice, he wasn’t sure this was the best idea after all.
“Akaashi, you’re gonna help me right?”
Akaashi stepped confidently onto the ice and offered his hand to Bokuto.
“Of course. Now come on, it’s not that scary.”
Bokuto made an unsure noise and took Akaashi’s hand, tentatively taking his first step onto the ice. He hesitated, wanting to keep his other foot anchored to solid ground for a bit longer. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward and grabbed Akaashi’s shoulder, putting his weight on him and pushing him backwards slightly.
“Ahh! I did it!”
“Well done Bokuto-san, now try standing on your own,” Akaashi encouraged. He pushed Bokuto back a bit with his free hand, his other hand still holding Bokuto’s.
“Ahh! No, I can’t!” Bokuto cried. He wobbled and grabbed back at Akaashi in a panic, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and leaning his head against his chest.
“Bokuto-san, that’s not going to help you learn.”
“I don’t care, this is the safest!”
Akaashi sighed and somehow managed to turn the two of them around to face Kuroo and Kenma who were both trying not to laugh.
“You ok there Akaashi?” Kuroo asked.
“You two can go ahead, this is probably going to take a while,” Akaashi said.
“Alright, good luck,” Kuroo laughed.
Kuroo and Kenma went ahead, making it around the whole rink once before returning to the same spot to find Akaashi still struggling and Bokuto still clinging to him. Akaashi tried to take a step and Bokuto pulled him closer, making both of them wobble.
“Bokuto-san please just stand up. You’re too heavy, you’re going to make us fall over.”
“I can’t stand up on my own!”
Kuroo and Kenma looked at each other, at first it was funny but now they were starting to feel bad for Akaashi.
“Do you think you’ll be ok on your own?” Kuroo asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be ok,” Kenma said, letting go of Kuroo’s arm.
“Come here bro, I’ll help you,” Kuroo said as he moved closer to the other two. “Give Akaashi a chance to breathe.”
Bokuto lifted his head off Akaashi’s chest to look at Kuroo and considered it for a moment before reaching a hand out to Kuroo. They awkwardly swapped over, Bokuto desperately trying to not be left on his own for even a second. To Kuroo’s surprise, Bokuto was clinging to him as much as he did with Akaashi, this time standing a bit more to his side so they were facing more or less the same direction, but still wrapping his arms around his middle and leaning his head against his chest.
Akaashi gave Kuroo an apologetic look, but he was grateful to be able to stand up properly and actually do some ice skating.
“Kenma, do you want to do some laps with me?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah sure,” Kenma agreed.
They left Kuroo behind to deal with Bokuto for a while and started skating around the rink, Akaashi keeping with Kenma’s pace. Kenma was still a bit nervous, but he was starting to feel comfortable going slow so he sped up a little bit. At a corner, he lost his balance and stumbled, and Akaashi grabbed him to help steady him.
“Are you ok?” he asked.
“Yeah, thanks,” Kenma said, “I just lost my balance a bit.”
“You can hold onto my hand if you need to,” Akaashi suggested.
“Oh no, it’s fine, you don’t have to look after me.”
“It’s no trouble, really. It’s good to have something to hold onto to help steady yourself when you need to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
Akaashi held out his hand in front of him and Kenma took it, looking up at Akaashi to make sure it was ok. Akaashi gently squeezed his hand and smiled just as softly, making Kenma look away quickly, suddenly realising how embarrassing the situation was.
By the time they caught back up to Kuroo and Bokuto, they had made it halfway around the rink thanks to Kuroo basically dragging the other boy around who was still refusing to stand up on his own. Akaashi and Kenma passed the others, only slowing down for a quick greeting before continuing.
“Bro, look!” Kuroo said, nudging Bokuto and pointing at the two boys in front of them.
“Huh?” Bokuto looked up. “Hey, they’re holding hands! Akaashiiiiii!!” he called.
“Looks like you’ve lost hand holding privileges.”
Bokuto pouted and mumbled, “It’s not fair.”
He wasn’t exactly jealous, he didn’t really mind that Kenma was holding Akaashi’s hand, they were friends after all, and it was kind of cute. But Bokuto wanted to hold his hand too.
“You can hold my hand if you want.” Kuroo grinned teasingly, Bokuto glared up at him. “Your nose is really red, you know.”
“I can’t help it, it’s cold.” Bokuto sulked.
Kuroo pinched his nose. “You’re right it is cold.”
“Hey! Stop it!” Bokuto pushed him away, his whole face turning pink now.
“Hey look, you’re standing up!”
Bokuto only just realised it, but he was. Pushing Kuroo away meant he had lost his person to hold on to, but surprisingly, he was standing on his own just fine.
“What do I do now?” Bokuto asked.
“Just take a step and slide,” Kuroo said.
Bokuto gave it a try and managed a shaky step forward, grabbing Kuroo’s arm as he reached him.
“There you go, not too bad!”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
He slowly started to warm up to it and soon he was able to slowly skate beside Kuroo without holding on to him.
“Wanna go a bit faster?” Kuroo asked.
“Not really.”
Kuroo didn’t listen and started to speed up anyway.
“Kuroo! Come back!”
Not wanting to be left behind, Bokuto sped up a bit to try to catch up, but Kuroo kept going faster, always just out of reach. Before they knew it, it had turned into a race, Bokuto’s shaky start seemingly forgotten. They sped past Akaashi and Kenma who were both surprised at the sight.
“I’m not sure if I should be impressed or concerned,” Akaashi said.
They continued for a while, Bokuto and Kuroo still racing each other while Akaashi tried to teach Kenma how to spin, keeping out of the way of the others.
Kuroo was starting to get tired now, his stamina not as high as Bokuto’s who took this chance to finally catch up to him. Rather than overtake him though, they ended up crashing into each other with enough force to send them both to the ground, sliding a few feet along the ice.
“Ow!” Bokuto cried.
“What did you do that for?” Kuroo asked, rubbing his sore elbow.
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Hey, what happened over there?” Akaashi called, going over to check if they were alright.
“I think we got a little carried away,” Kuroo said.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Kenma agreed.
“I think I’ve had enough of ice skating,” Bokuto said.
***
Kuroo and Akaashi had their first big essay due, and they had both been stressing over it for the past week. They had until 5pm to hand it in, but neither of them were completely finished or sure they had even done everything right. They decided it would be best to spend the day in the library finishing it to avoid certain distractions, namely a bored Bokuto and Kenma who didn’t have any assignments due for a while.
So they packed up their stuff and headed to the library. When they got there, Kuroo saw one of his friends from the dorm last year.
“Hey sorry, do you mind if I say hi to my friend?” Kuroo asked.
“Oh, sure,” Akaashi said.
They went over to sit down at the table where his friend was.
“Hey, long time no see,” Kuroo greeted.
“Oh hey Kuroo, how have you been?”
“Good, good, this is Akaashi by the way.”
“Hi, nice to meet you,” Akaashi said.
“Oh hi, you must be Kuroo’s boyfriend.”
Kuroo and Akaashi looked at each other, surprised.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kuroo said.
“Oh sorry, I just assumed,” his friend said.
“What made you think we were boyfriends?”
“Well, you were always talking about your boyfriend last year and every time I’ve seen you this year you’ve been together, so I thought he must be your boyfriend.”
“We’re just taking a lot of the same classes and we live together so we spend a lot of time together, I guess,” Kuroo clarified.
“So you’re really not dating?”
“We’re not.”
“So are you single then, Akaashi?”
“No,” he replied.
“No,” Kuroo also answered. For some reason Kuroo felt the need to make sure everyone knew he wasn’t available. “He’s Bokuto’s boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah, Bokuto talked about his boyfriend a lot too. It’s a shame though, you are very attractive.”
“Oh…” Akaashi said, clearly uncomfortable. “Thank you.”
Kuroo didn’t like that his friend was hitting on Akaashi, he didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, so he decided it was time to leave.
“Well, we had better get to work on our essays, I’ll see you around.”
“Ok, see you.”
They got up and found a quiet spot to study, far away from Kuroo’s friend.
“I’m sorry about him.”
“It’s ok,” Akaashi said.
The whole situation was bothering Kuroo more than he expected, and he had a hard time getting focused. He didn’t like other people calling his best friend’s boyfriend attractive, even though it was true. He was also beginning to realise how much time they were spending together and how comfortable they had gotten around each other, enough to be mistaken for boyfriends.
Meanwhile, Bokuto and Kenma had been left alone in the house, and Bokuto was getting bored. Kenma was playing a game on the tv in the living room when Bokuto came and sat next to him on the couch.
“What are you playing?” Bokuto asked.
“It’s just a shooter game,” Kenma said.
“Is it fun?”
“Meh, it’s getting kinda boring.”
Bokuto sat and watched Kenma for a while, asking questions about what he was doing. Kenma debated whether to ask if he wanted to play. He never usually would, but both of them were rather bored and he seemed interested in it.
“Do you want to have a go?” he ended up asking.
Bokuto looked surprised, “Can I?”
“If you want to.”
“Ok, yeah I’ll try it.”
Kenma held out the controller to him, but Bokuto looked reluctant to take it.
“Can’t we both play?”
“It’s only one player.”
“Oh,” Bokuto looked disappointed, “do you have any two player ones?”
Kenma paused and thought about it for a moment, he was used to playing by himself so he didn’t have many options.
“Well, there was this platformer that I was thinking about getting. I’m pretty sure it has a two player mode.”
Bokuto lit up, “Do you wanna go buy it?”
“I don’t know… Kuroo said I should try to spend less money on games now that I’m a university student.”
“Well, Kuroo’s not here,” Bokuto said with a mischievous look in his eyes that was starting to grow on Kenma.
“Alright, let’s get it.”
When they arrived at the mall, it was a lot more crowded than they were expecting. Kenma wondered if there was some kind of event going on. The game store was on the other side of the mall, so they were going to have to navigate through the crowd a lot. Kenma didn’t like crowds.
“Maybe we should come back tomorrow,” Kenma said.
“We’ve come all the way here, we might as well get it now.” Bokuto said. Kenma didn’t look convinced.
“It’ll be fine, just stick close to me so you don’t get lost!” Bokuto assured.
It wasn’t getting lost that Kenma was worried about, but he didn’t want to argue with Bokuto so he went along with it, hoping it would be alright.
“Ok, let’s just go quickly.”
They started making their way through the crowd, every push and nudge and loud noise and step behind Bokuto making Kenma get more and more anxious. He found himself wishing Kuroo was there to hold onto and make him feel safe and silently understand what he needed. He squeezed his eyes shut to try to calm himself down even though it made it harder to navigate through the crowd. He was finding it harder to think about his surroundings as anxiety overwhelmed his senses.
“Kenma?”
The voice brought him back to earth and he opened his eyes to see a concerned Bokuto looking down at him.
“Are you ok?” he asked.
Kenma nearly said yes out of habit but stopped himself, knowing it would do no good to help the situation.
“No.” His voice was shaky as he spoke.
Bokuto’s frown deepened. He wasn’t sure what to do but he could tell Kenma needed him to do something. He pulled him close into a tight hug and spoke gently.
“I know you would probably prefer Kuroo, but I’ll protect you for him.”
Kenma closed his eyes and focused on the hug, trying to block out the mass of people moving around them. The hug felt nice, and safe, even if it wasn’t Kuroo. He calmed down a bit.
After giving him a moment, Bokuto pulled back to look at Kenma.
“Do you want a piggyback ride so you can see better?” he asked.
Kenma made a face. “People will stare at us.”
“I don’t care, as long as it makes you feel better.”
It sounded like a stupid idea, but as Kenma considered it, he started to think it might actually help.
“Alright,” he agreed.
Bokuto smiled, happy that it seemed he had done the right thing. He turned around and bent down so Kenma could climb onto his back.
Once he was on, Kenma had to admit that it was nice being able to see over the crowd and not get bumped so much by the passing people. They safely made it to the store, got the game, and got back through the crowd with the same strategy.
Once safely home, they played the new game together which Bokuto was surprisingly good at and got very invested in, which made it extra fun for Kenma. They were still playing by the time Kuroo and Akaashi got home just before 5pm.
“Hey you two, did you miss us?” Kuroo asked.
“Hi,” Kenma said, neither of them taking their eyes off the screen.
“Is that a new game?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought I told you to not spend too much on games.”
Kenma pretended not to hear. Once they made it to a checkpoint, they paused the game to properly greet their boyfriends.
“How did your essay go?” Bokuto asked.
“Well, I finished it,” Kuroo said.
“Now we can only wait to see our results,” Akaashi said.
“I’m sure you did great!” Bokuto assured.
Later that night, Kenma told Kuroo about their trip to the mall and how Bokuto had helped him. Kuroo knew Kenma had been a bit unsure at first about living with Bokuto, but seeing how well they were all getting along and helping each other made him very happy they had decided to live together, and excited about what the future could hold.