Work Text:
For the prompt, "what was Kuroo thinking throughout the events of Pyromania?"
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You showed up here, one day. It had been a long day. You showed up, already standing out from the huddles of teenagers, and then you had to go and make yourself stand out even more. You had to ask for something that nobody had ever asked for before.
I didn’t say no. It wasn’t my job to say no. And, of course, I hadn’t known. So I walked you back and rolled up my sleeves and let you stare out the window like you were in some kind of angsty movie.
And then I did know. It was painfully ironic, the infinity sign. The sign that stood for forever, and you wanted to get rid of it. The first time I met you, you ended our forever before you even knew it had begun.
I could have told you. I could have let you know that my entire world had just shifted, and yet…your whole continued turning. You weren’t aware of the crisis happening right next to you. And you didn’t want to be a part of the crisis.
Could I remove the crisis, and let you think you were removing a circle instead of a forever?
I didn’t get payed enough for doing that. And selfishly, I regretted doing it more than anything when it was done, and when you walked away.
And if I thought it was a long day before that, it was a long month after that. Long nights, long days, long thoughts that didn’t go away. A longing to talk to someone who didn’t walk to talk to me, but… I’d never wanted to talk to someone so badly before.
My life didn’t shatter or change. It stayed the same. And that was, perhaps, even worse.
And when it sunk it—when it really sunk in that I’d never see you again, that you were my soulmate and yet you didn’t want anything to do with me, you didn’t want to see me, and…you never would.
You wouldn’t remember me. But I couldn’t forget you.
Did you remember me? Did you know my name when you walked in here with them?
They stormed in here, impossible to miss and loud as hell, but they were interesting and endearing. And, somehow, I didn’t even notice you standing behind them. And then he turned to you and everything stopped. You knew who I was, even if you only knew me as the one who removed your tattoo.
I wanted to point right at you and say, “it’s him! That’s who the other tattoo belongs to! He’s right there!"
But I refrained, because you didn’t want a thing to do with any of us. Would it have hurt them, knowing? Would it have hurt them to know the same way that I did, knowing that they were made for someone who would rather have them out of their life than to spend their life with them?
And all at once I realized that maybe that was okay, because they were there, too. Was that compensation? It was shitty compensation.
But they were there, and they were meant for me, and I was meant for them, and they were so different from you. And the longer I spent with them, the longer I thought perhaps, just perhaps, I could forget you.
And yet. You remained. Lingering in my thoughts.
And yet. They stayed. Real and vibrant and physically present.
During long nights when I went without sleep, I knew that you were there just one room away, sleeping on a couch because you didn’t want to sleep with us. I knew that was your choice, and I knew that I shouldn’t have been hurt, and yet I was.
When they knew, that you were meant for all of us—a group of four, rather than three—they acted like they were just as calm about it. Were they hurt by your unwillingness, too?
It felt selfish, wishing you would change your mind.
Your absence wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it was, sometimes. Sometimes they were there, and their warmth was enough to make me want to clamber into their arms and fall asleep. They had terrible movie taste, but it was almost endearing.
The way that he drew was breath-taking. And he drew the whole world. He drew you, when you didn’t know it, and it was always stunning. You were always stunning. They were always stunning.
When he drew the world, I wondered if it was supposed to mean something more.
And I fell in love with him, I fell in love with his art and his eyes and his hair and the way he was up for anything, energetic and ready to go.
And I fell in love with both of them, with Tsukishima and his smirk and his calmness and his soft coyness.
And I fell in love with you, with your hesitance and your quietness, but most of all I fell in love with the real you, who laughed while you danced with Tsukki, with the you that didn’t pack until the night before our trip (though you acted as if nobody knew), with the you who would tangle yourself with me and fall asleep.
And I fell in love with you and them, with us, and I can’t imagine going back to that dull tattoo parlor and leaning against that counter all day to return home and cycle on with a boring life.
I can’t imagine a life without all of you. I can’t imagine a life where we didn’t go to America and come home together, to call it home. I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t live with all of you. You’re family, you know that?
You, them, me.
Us.