Chapter Text
It's day one of Kuroo's assignment to the Alliance Ship Kepler when he opens the door to his bunk and assumes he's hallucinating. There's a familiar figure on the floor, wearing the white navigator's uniform and sitting with his knees tucked up to his chin. Kuroo is struck almost flat on his back by memories of grass stains and baby teeth and listening to the wind chimes on the front porch as they spat watermelon seeds. Kozume Kenma is both every memory he’s missed and every memory he’s wanted to forget, and now here he is, so close Kuroo could reach out and ruffle his hair like he hasn’t done in over three years.
Kuroo shakes his head, drops his duffel to the floor so he can scrub his eyes, but the picture doesn’t change. Kozume Kenma is hunched over, tinkering with his tablet and swiping through holograms of stars, completely unbothered by his visitor. His hair is bleached, roots peeking out underneath, but it’s unmistakably him. The exaggerated curve of his back and shoulders, the way his bare toes curl repetitively, restlessly against each other, the way he tucks his hair behind his ears and looks at Kuroo with the most piercingly gold eyes.
It’s him.
And Kuroo doesn’t know what to say. He could probably start with something like, "Hi," but that’s too little, he thinks, to make up for years of absence. He wants to run forward and hug him, scoop him up, apologize for leaving him alone to join the Alliance. For not responding to his messages, because training was harder than he’d ever thought, darker than he’d ever thought. He didn't want Kenma to know about the noises in the night, the fistfights in the cafeteria, fighters marking their navigators like property.
And that, that's when that Kuroo's heart stops, and his blood turns to ice, because he realizes that if Kenma’s here, on the Kepler with his own duffel bag taking up half a bunk, his hair bleached standard navigator white, then he must have seen it, he must already know, and god dammit Kuroo fucked up so bad--
"Shut the door already," Kenma interrupts his rapidly derailing train of thought, straightening so he can crack his back with two quick pops, blinking at him wide and innocent. Or maybe that’s just what Kuroo wants to see. Maybe Kenma’s honey eyes are a little less sweet, a little more abrasive than he remembers. Not innocent at all.
"Kenma." He takes a shaky step forward, and the automatic door glides shut behind him. "Are you Kenma?"
"Hi, Kuro," he says instead of answering directly, but it's as good as a yes, at least until he adds: "It's Baast now, actually."
"Oh," Kuroo says.
Kenma switches off the hologram and looks at Kuroo's duffel bag. "I take it your task name is Sekhmet?"
"Yes," he says, still in shock. It's been three years; there's so many questions he wants to ask. Why is he a navigator? Has he been taking care of himself? How long has he been on the Kepler? The way Kenma is studying the readouts says it's not new to him. Is Kuroo not his first fighter?
Does Kenma hate him now for leaving?
But because he's Kuroo, he leans against the wall and tries to read over his shoulder and says, "So, top bunk or bottom bunk?"
"I sleep on the floor," Kenma says, switching the hologram back on, eyes flicking back and forth as he scrolls through incomprehensibly complicated data.
It's as clear a dismissal as Kenma is capable of giving. Kuroo doesn't think he has any right to feel disappointed by this, but his chest apparently didn't get the memo, because it hurts. He wants to press for details, fan out all their feelings like cards on a floor, but he knows from experience that pushing Kenma is literally the worst way to get him to open up about anything. He needs time, and Kuroo owes him that, at least.
So he stuffs his duffel bag under the bottom bunk, suddenly too nauseated to even think about unpacking, and sighs in relief when the digital display by his bed starts flashing and a voice crackles through instructing him to go to physical training.
He thumbs the radio button and says, "Acknowledged," and looks at the curved line of Kenma's back.
"Kenma," he says quietly.
Kenma's shoulders inch up towards his ears and he hunches over so far his hair slips out from where it's tucked behind his ears, hiding his face.
"Baast," he tries, hating the way it sounds.
"Mm?" Kenma says.
He thinks of watermelons and coconut sunscreen and wide-brimmed straw hats, things he hasn't yearned for since the Alliance training literally beat it out of him, things Kenma has stirred to life inside of him.
"It's good to see you," he says, finally. He adjusts his flightsuit where it's sticking to his thighs, because whoever designed these things was either a masochist or really into vinyl, and he's surprised the entire thing doesn't squeak when he walks.
Kenma's fingers pause where they were swiping through stars, but he doesn't respond.
Right.
"Sleeping on the floor is bad for your back," he says, stepping over the cord that's charging Kenma's tablet, and resists the urge to pat him on the head like he used to. He tries grinning, but that feels false, too. "I'll see you tomorrow for compatibility training?"
Kenma nods but doesn't look up. Kuroo palms the button to open the door and focuses on remembering where the fuck the training hall is. Anything but Kenma, really, which is harder than it sounds.
When he drags himself back late that night, sore and bruised and short of breath, Kenma is curled up in a nest of blankets on the floor, the glow of his tablet illuminating his face. It's a familiar sight, and Kuroo gets as far as plugging it in and gently sliding a pillow underneath Kenma's head before he realizes what he's doing--that maybe Kenma doesn't want him to do this sort of thing anymore--and jerks away, holding his breath until he's sure he didn't accidentally wake him.
He climbs into the top bunk and falls asleep facing the wall.