Chapter Text
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The season was finally changing. Slowly but surely, the cold of winter was giving way to the crisp scent of spring, days getting longer, wind getting a more calm attribute. Coats were practically pointless by now, but that didn’t stop Kenma from hiding himself in his training uniform, hood of his jacket pulled way up and over his blonde mess of hair.
“You slacked off again at practice didn’t you?”, he smirked, voice fuzzy through Kenma’s headphones.
“Did not”, Kenma mumbled in reply, his hands lazily tapping through one app after another, his 30-minutes-and-counting call with Kuroo glinting green at the top of his screen.
“Is Lev giving you trouble again?”
He sounds tired, Kenma thought, hearing the slight edge of Kuro’s voice
“Mm, not really. He’s getting better. Still annoying as usual though”
“Really? I need to see that. How’s he doing with receiving? He really needed to work on receiving last I-“
“Didn’t you have practice today as well?” Kenma interrupted, mostly because knowing that though tired, his best friend would never stop talking about volleyball unless prompted to, but also because the last thing he wanted to do at the time was talk about Lev.
Kuroo huffed an affirmative noise in reply.
“Maybe you should go rest.”
“Awe, Ken-chan is concerned about me?” Kuroo’s mocking (but not mean, never mean) voice echoed through the phone. Kenma wished he could send him his usual glare through their call, but settled on silence from his end.
“I’ll go take a shower and chill a bit once you reach home safely. God knows you’ll get too absorbed in Neko Atsume or something and stand in the middle of the street until a car hits you.” Kuroo sighed, a picture of Kenma in this position already painted in his head.
“So you did download it”
“Wha-no! …Maybe. That fat cat looked interesting.”
“Mhm” ,Kenma hummed; it took less than a week to make Kuroo succumb to the addiction that is Neko Atsume, he wondered how long until he got him into Love Live.
“I’m almost home anyway. You should go. You’re meeting up with Oikawaa and Bokuto afterwards.”
“And they can handle themselves just fine if I’m 10 minutes late-wait, you just huffed-laughed at me didn’t you? Why did you huff-laugh at me?!”
Kenma stifled his laugh further before replying.
“…Kuroo, it takes 30 minutes to style your hair”
“…Shut up”, he managed after a while, evidently admitting defeat to Kenma.
“Anyway, I’m home now”, Kenma mumbled, pulling his keys out of his backpack and stuffing the phone back in his uniforms’ pocket, headphones still in place.
“Okay. Skype ya later tonight, if you’re up?”
Kenma mumbled in agreement.
“Awesome, see ya Kenma.”
“Bye Kuroo.”
I lo-
The words almost slipped Kuroo’s mouth, but he ended the call right before he could, eyes widening in surprise. Shit, what was that, the third time he almost did that? Fourth? He lost count somewhere along the line.
“Bro. Broo. You almost threw the L-word back there didn’t you?”
Bokuto’s head popped out of the bathroom door and into Kuroo’s bedroom, peeking at him with those stupid owl-brows of his (Yes, Kuroo called them owl-brows. No, he couldn’t care less that owl-brows isn't a word).
Kuroo just groaned, pushing his hand through his hair, dropping back down on his bed.
“You should just tell him dude. Like, it’s Kenma we’re talking about. You guys are practically dating already.”
“You of all people should know it’s not that easy Bo.”
Bokuto took his reply as an invite, stepping into Kuroos' room with his hair still tousled and wet from his shower.
“Mm, it’s exactly because I get it that I know that you should just tell him already.”
Kuroo turned his head to face his best friend at that, an eyebrow raising as if by reflex.
“Oh ho? And is that what you did with Akashi?”
Bokuto threw him a glare, as menacing as he could when his wet hair made him look about as menacing as a baby owl.
“That’s a different matter! I at least TOLD him how I feel about him!”
“Oh yeah? And how did you do that?”
“I-“
“You yelling ‘I LIKE YOU AKASHI CONTACT ME NEVER’right after graduating and then running away doesn’t count.”, he smirked, raising his voice in a high-pitched manner to imitate his best friend.
“I WANNA SEE YOU DO BETTER YOU ASSHOLE” he yelled, throwing the towel wrapped around his shoulders head-first into Kuroos’ face.
“We’re all pretty pathetic aren’t we.” Kuroo sighed.
“Yeah. At least Tooru actually got a step further than us two.” Bokuto replied, remembering their conversation with Oikawa from last month.
“Yeah, Tooru may have had sex with Iwazumi more than once, but do you see them walking around hand in hand and expressing their gay undying love for each other?”
Both men hummed at that in agreement.
“Then again, Tooru is an entire different story.”
“True, true” Kuroo replied. “So, shower free? Can I use it now?”
“All yours bro! Don’t bother styling your hair, it’s just gonna be us 3 chilling and talking bout our horrible love lives-plus, you take like, over 30 minutes to style that mess of yours”
Exasperated, Kuroo threw his arms up in defeat.
“WHAT DOES EVERYBODY HAVE AGAINST MY HAIR.”
“Dude. Even gravity goes against your hair when you style it like that. Don’t bother.”
Kuroo didn’t know if he wanted to pull his hair out, or pull his best friends hair out.
Maybe Tooru’s. Damn Tooru and his hair-care commercial hair.
At that, the tall man sighed and got up, grabbing a pair of sweatpants lying on the floor, and the first shirt he found from his closet.
“Chin up kitten-boy; You’ll get to whine all about your sad gay unrequited crush on your childhood best friend for the next couple of hours”, Bo laughed, teasingly slapping Kuroo’s butt on their way out of his bedroom.
“Don’t say the U-word. It makes this all too real.”
“What word”, Bo teased, raising his brows and throwing an innocent look at his best friend's way, “Universal? Unicorns? Urine, maybe?”
Kuroo barely spared him a glance before heading into the bathroom.
Unrequited crush on your best friend. Hah. Isn’t that how all those stupid rom-com movies start?