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Half past midnight, Bokuto was shaken from his sleep by the incessant ringing of his phone. The last thing he took kindly to was being forcefully awoken at ungodly hours, especially when he was already exhausted from late practice with Akaashi. He grumbled, rolling over and smacking the phone off the table, but it continued to blare no matter how many times he let it go to voicemail. The ace eventually dragged himself out of bed and picked it up, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.
"Hello?"
"Hey… I'm sorry for calling so late. Do you think you could come over?"
"Eh? Right now?"
"Yeah. Please?"
"But I'm so tireddd…" Bokuto couldn't help but whine.
"I know, I know. I promise I'll make it up to you."
"Fineee."
He could never deny Kuroo.
He dragged himself out of bed and slipped on a coat, trying his hardest to sneak through the house unnoticed. He may have been eighteen, but there was still no way in hell his Mom would want him slinking around the city in the middle of the night like some heathen. What could Kuroo want anyways? Bokuto wasn't much of a thinker—Akaashi said it wasn't good for him to do it too much—but things had been so different between them lately he couldn't help but mull it over. Normal hangouts just hadn't been normal, not since the kiss.
That kiss, God. It came out of nowhere about a month ago. Well, not nowhere, but the ace was never too good at picking up on signals unrelated to volleyball. It was Friday night, they were over at Kuroo's practicing serves, the topic drifted to Kenma (they were fighting, long story) and somehow they wound up making out in his backyard. They hadn't talked about it, and as much as Bokuto wanted to, he wasn't quite sure what to say.
Kuroo and Kenma weren't dating or anything, but it was at least obvious to Bokuto that he liked him. Bokuto felt weird about it for a number of reasons, most of which he didn't have the mental arsenal to properly unpack. He was pretty sure he wasn't gay. He had never really felt gay, at least. Or straight. Or generally attracted to anything besides volleyball. Yet, everything Kuroo did left him with a funny feeling in his chest he wasn't sure he liked. Every time they'd hung out since it always ended with them making out in the dark after Kuroo dropped some bomb about his feelings. Bokuto was never quite sure how it escalated.
It wasn't that he didn't like kissing Kuroo. That part was pretty nice, he'd come to realize through a rather confusing emotional epiphany. He honestly did like it. He liked the way his breath smelled, the way his lips always tasted like mint chapstick, the way he looked at him and always knew exactly what to say. The strange part—the part he didn't like—was that he never truly felt like it was meant for him. Kenma was always on Kuroo's mind before it happened. The kiss was always chasing some dreary thought about the state and future of their relationship and how the hell he was going to fix it. Bokuto wasn't sure what the kisses were out of, but he knew it wasn't love.
Maybe he did kind of like Kuroo as more than a friend, but he didn't want to call himself gay or anything. After all, it was only one guy out of everyone else he'd met in his life. It was just Kuroo. Bokuto hoped that just this once he would walk in and Kenma wouldn't come up at all. Kuroo would look at him, talk about him, kiss him just because he was the one he wanted to kiss, and everything would feel okay. He wouldn't go home feeling like a gross second place interfering with someone else's relationship. Or maybe it was better if they just didn't kiss at all.
—
Bokuto's face was red from the vicious wind as he finally arrived at Kuroo's house. His stomach hurt and he couldn't help yawning as he dismounted his bike, leaning it up against the steps. He pulled off a glove with his teeth, grabbing his phone and sending a quick text to Kuroo that he was waiting out by the back gate. A couple cold, miserable minutes passed before he finally heard the click of the metal latch, and the gate opened to reveal Kuroo looking at him with a lopsided grin. Yeah, Bokuto could never, ever say no to him.
"Jesus, I can practically hear you shaking."
"Hey, how was I supposed to know it was gonna be this cold?" He pouted, and Kuroo just snickered as he crawled back into his room through the first-floor window.
"You check the weather app, dork."
Bokuto just huffed again and squeezed his way in, trying to not make too much of a racket. The last time Kuroo's mom caught him over unannounced they both got an earful. His shivering luckily subsided fast—Kuroo had the warmest house out of anyone he'd ever met—and he sat down obediently on the other captain's bed.
"Hey, at least I came! I was up sooo late practicing spikes with Akaashi and now I'm superrr tired."
"I'm sorry, I know. I won't give you too much shit, thanks for coming."
Kuroo eased up a bit, his grin relaxing into something gentle as he grabbed some blankets from his closet.
"Now lay back, I'd be a shitty host to let you freeze."
Bokuto wasn't one to argue when it came to soft quilts and heat. He had a tendency to run pretty chilly, so none of this was ever too much. He just laid back in Kuroo's bed and rolled over, leaving enough space for the other to inevitably crawl in beside him. They'd shared space like this for a long time, but lately it was different. Everything was different in some tainted way.
"You're still a shitty host… Making me come all this way in the middle of the cold, dark night.."
He complained, but Kuroo just rolled his eyes and crawled into bed. He laid his head on the pillow, facing the other with an unamused gaze. Bokuto loved his eyes. He loved his face, his voice, the way he spoke, the way his ridiculous hair fell over his features when he rested beside him. Sure, they would roughhouse and call each other names, but Kuroo looked at him so fondly everything friendly about their relationship fell away. Yet Bokuto still had to ask himself: what was he really here for?
"I know, I'm sorry. Seriously, thank you."
Things fell silent for a moment afterwards, mostly because Bokuto didn't want to say anything. He didn't want to ask questions, he didn't want to know what this was about, he didn't want to hear the word 'Kenma' come out of the other's mouth even once. Bokuto wasn't used to feelings like this. He liked Kenma, he didn't want to resent him. He wasn't trying to resent him. Did he resent him? Once again, he tried not to think too hard, because Akaashi was generally right when he said it wasn't good for him.
"So what's up with Kenma?"
Bokuto finally blurted before he could even think to stop himself. It wasn't accusatory, no, definitely not, but the question had some sort of unspoken accusation to it. As if to say 'why am I here if not for him?' Kuroo raised an eyebrow at his bluntness, looking almost uncomfortable at the callout. He shifted a little under the blankets before breaking the silence once more.
"He's, uh… mad at me."
Kuroo started slowly, almost as if it was wrong to say anything at all.
"Again. I swear, I'm not really trying to fight with him, he's just been so reactive lately. I ask him to do stuff and he always brushes me off. I called him out on it because, y'know, I wanna do stuff with him, but now he's just pissed. He's leaving me on read. I'm kinda worried too. I feel like he's getting bad again and I don't wanna let him rot. I miss him."
Bokuto felt like his chest was rejecting his heart. He didn't know how to feel about that. He didn't know how to process it or recognize what it meant, but the sensation ate at him as Kuroo went on. 'I miss him.' He seemed to say. 'I miss him and that's why you're here.'
"I'm sorry, man. Is it like what happened last year?"
It hurt to speak, but Bokuto was a good friend. He cared about Kuroo, he worried for Kenma, and he truly wanted the best for the both of them. He couldn't let all the weird emotions bubbling up inside him affect his judgement. Kuroo nodded hesitantly and inched a little closer.
"I think so. He just gets depressed in the winter… And mean, but I don't really blame him. I want to help but he just won't let me."
He sighed and Bokuto naturally let his arms fall open for Kuroo to curl up in them. The ace's hands settled on the middle blocker's back as he did, bodies fitting together perfectly. Kuroo felt like shit. He felt guilty. All of this was so much more than what he made it out to be and he knew it was making Bokuto suffer.
"Thanks for being around, Bo. I'm-.. sorry I haven't been completely considerate. I'm sorry we haven't talked about it."
That sort of vagueness was easily confusing to poor Bokuto, who wasn't exactly the best with context clues. He just felt him wrap an arm around his waist and go somewhat stiff, but he wasn't sure if that was supposed to be good or as foreboding as it felt.
"Uhh.. I'm confused."
"The kiss. Y'know, the kissing, I should say. The.. inviting you over for this and.. doing that. It's not fair."
Bokuto felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The elephant in the room was suddenly all up in his face and there wasn't much he could do to ignore it. He wasn't very good at understanding the elephant. He wasn't even sure what kind of elephant it was. He wasn't sure if it was a nice elephant or an evil one. He also wasn't totally sure he understood metaphors.
"I like it."
He said, with a not-so-shocking lack of forethought.
"I mean, I like being here for you, and, uh.. I like.. kissing you.. when it happens, but I know it's not really for me, I guess. And, like, I'm okay with that, I just-.. uh.. I don't know. I feel weird about it. Not the- the kissing, just, the uhm.."
Bokuto trailed off helplessly. He really wished he had some sort of speech prepared. Kuroo's head turned up from his chest to look at him, his expression a foreign mixture of guilt and perplexity.
"Not for you?"
"Well, yeah, I mean.. I know you like Kenma. And I guess we've only ever kissed in the dark after you talk about him.. so I feel like it's kinda easy to tell what that's all about. And it's okay! Seriously, it's, fine, I mean, I don't even-.. I like kissing you but I'm not, like-.. It's not-.. Uhh.. Does that make sense?"
He felt like he needed to backtrack and defend himself—prevent himself from getting hurt at all. He had to make it clear he didn't like Kuroo. He didn't have feelings for him. This didn't hurt him. He didn't even like guys. Kuroo could keep doing it because it didn't mean anything and it was totally affectionless and there were no feelings involved whatsoever. Bokuto would shamelessly let him use him over and over again until he finally, inevitably sorted things out with Kenma. And then Bokuto would figure it out, but he didn't have to be there yet. They didn't have to be there yet.
"I don't, like-.. There's no feelings or anything, I promise. I don't care if, uhm, you do it. We do it-? You just, uh.. We can, but it's okay, I'm not-.. I don't like guys, so, you can keep doing it, like, if you want."
Kuroo knew Bokuto too well to take that at face value, and what hid beneath it was even more alarming. The guilt was eating him alive. Of course he liked Kenma. He had always liked Kenma, that was something unspoken and it had been around since they were kids. Kenma was why he knew he liked guys. Kenma was a lot of his firsts when it came to boys and crushes and figuring himself out, but that was never meant to go anywhere. Things were complicated, but he and Kenma would never be a thing. It just wouldn't work, and they were both okay with that.
Bokuto, on the other hand? Instantly the light of his life. Literally. He was the obnoxious, terribly stupid dork he had somehow picked up during his years at Nekoma. That freak of nature that never left him alone and never let him stay down for more than a minute. They mixed and fit together in all the right ways, and Kuroo spent years pining for someone he knew he probably couldn't have. Yet Bokuto was there. He was there at his lowest. He was there at his worst. He was always there to lift him up, but a time came when Kuroo knew he had demanded too much. He had kissed him. Again and again, because Bokuto kissed back. He hadn't meant to take advantage—he loved him, for God's sake—and now Bokuto picked out all the worst parts of what he had done and spun them into a bundle of doubt.
"Bokuto,"
He started gently, inching backwards to get a better look at his face.
"Kenma is not what I want. He's my friend, and yeah, when we were kids I had a pretty nasty crush on him, but he's not what I want. Things have been pretty shitty between us recently and I've had a lot going on.. I'm sorry I was so selfish, especially with you."
"You're not-"
"At this point, I really don't care if you know. You're a sweet guy, Bo. You do a lot to make me happy, and I thought for a while that that's what the kissing was. I thought you realized I liked you and I just thought you were letting me to make me feel better. I'm sorry I assumed."
Kuroo was being vague enough that Bokuto still struggled to find the meaning behind his words, but he was slowly putting pieces together. He glanced down at the other, almost immediately stricken by the look in his eyes. There was a lump in his throat when he tried to speak and nothing came out for a moment or so.
"..You like me?"
"I like you."
Bokuto could've cried.
"I like you."
As good as it felt to say, it was also an unsettling thing to admit. He wasn't gay, he never thought he was, but he knew he loved Kuroo. Couldn't it just be that simple?