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Kenma watches Kuroo, silently studying the side of his face. He’s bobbing along to a tune that plays only in his head, humming every so often. He looks happy. And he’s peaceful for once. Kenma doesn’t really want to disrupt him, especially as he’s making an apple pie. Kuroo pauses to tighten his apron, checking on Kenma over his shoulder and smiling broadly.
“What’s on your mind Pudding Head?”
“Nothing.” Today is probably a bad day to ask about it. Kuroo raises an eyebrow, fluttering over to rest in front of Kenma and prodding a finger into his forehead.
“That’s an awful big frown for nothing.” Kenma hates how well Kuroo knows him and stares off to the side to make sure Kuroo gets the message. “Hey,” Kuroo’s fingers gently pull Kenma back so they’re face to face, “you can tell me anything, you know?”
“Mhm.” Kenma does know. But that might be the problem. Kuroo is the only one he’d ever trust enough to even think about asking, but Kuroo is the only one who stands to have old wounds reopened.
“Well,” Kuroo cards a hand through his hair soothingly, brushing it out of his face and plants a kiss on top of his head, “whenever you’re ready I’m here.” It turns out all Kenma needs to be ready is Kuroo’s back to be facing him.
“Are humans real?” Kuroo halts mid-air, turning to look at Kenma with wide eyes.
“Why would you ask me that?” He doesn’t sound angry so much as confused. Maybe a little hurt. Probably a lot hurt and he’s just masking it for Kenma’s sake.
“I just,” Kenma fidgets, shuffling his head so that his hair falls back in front of his face, “you’re the smartest person I know and I need to know.”
“But–”
“Kuroo.” He might have managed to convince Bokuto, Oikawa, and even Sugawara that he must have been mistaken after the uproar last summer, but Kenma remains mostly unconvinced. Kuroo is his best friend, his oldest friend; Kenma knows him. A practical joke, he’d told them, voice strangely tight, but Kuroo wouldn’t joke about something like that. “It’s me.” Kenma chances a glance upwards, heart constricting at the pained look on Kuroo’s face. “You can tell me.” Kuroo floats down, feet landing softly on the floor.
“Yeah,” he mumbles and Kenma’s heart soars, “they’re real.”
“I saw one.” And he’s not going to tell anyone but Kuroo about it. Because he doesn’t want people to call him a liar in the street, doesn’t want the elders to tut at him and mutter insults under their breath whenever he leaves the house. He saw what that did to someone as strong and brilliant as Kuroo; he’d never survive. But he’s also not strong enough to pretend like he didn’t see and the conflict inside him has set his nerves on fire.
“What?” Kuroo’s voice is weirdly void of emotion, eyes unblinking.
“I saw one.” Kenma repeats, slowly and a little louder this time. Kuroo is on him in a flash, tilting his head down to stare at Kenma determinedly. His eyes flit across Kenma’s face a few times and then his face erupts into the largest smile Kenma’s seen all year.
“What did it look like?”
“Big,” Kenma can’t really be certain that what he saw was a human, but what else could it have been? “Wingless.” Kuroo nibbles excitedly on his bottom lip. “Its ears were curved at the top.” It had soft-looking skin and hair too. “It wasn’t scary.”
“Did you talk to it?” Kenma shakes his head. He’d gotten too close and the human had seen him but Kenma had been so shocked that he’d understood what the human was saying that he’d flown away as fast as he could. “Damn, you should have done! I think our magic works on them, like the same way we can understand animals.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Humans are really interesting! And really warm! Did it have dark hair and eyes? Maybe it’s Sawamura, come back to see me?”
“Uhm,” his human did have brown eyes but its hair was like the sun, “I don’t think so.” Kuroo visibly deflates, not even bothering to hide his pout.
“Where did you see it?” There’s a different question hidden underneath this one and Kenma nods, picking up one of Kuroo’s hands in his own.
“I’ll show you.”
Last year when Kuroo had first told him the story of how he met Sawamura the human he’d mentioned that he’d flown farther than ever. He has good legs and strong wings for flying long distances, unlike Kenma whose own wings are a little more delicate. He could practice, but that seems like a lot of unnecessary effort. And anyway, the human he found wasn’t all that far away; it only took him twenty minutes to fly back home yesterday. It takes slightly longer at his regular pace.
“How many times have you seen your human?” Kuroo’s hand is still in his own; it’s comforting.
“Once or twice.” Nearly every day for the last month, only he’s only got close enough to pick out the freckles across its nose this week.
“You seem to know where you’re going pretty well.”
“Mhm, this is where I like to come to paint.” Not a complete lie, but he doesn’t want Kuroo to think he didn’t trust him with this before today. It’s more like he didn’t trust himself.
“Does your human paint?”
“He collects pictures in a magical box.” the box flashes sometimes and once Kenma watched the human squat for hours as it sketched a cluster of Nemophila. It had its tongue poking out the entire time. “I’ve never seen it paint.” Kenma thinks he’d like to see it paint.
“A magical box?”
“It makes pictures without having to draw them.”
“Oh! Like a phone! Sawamura had a phone! It can do all kinds of things, like tell the time and you can push some numbers to hear your friends!”
“You’ve never told me that before.” Probably Kuroo met up with his human more times than he’s letting on too.
Kenma slows a little when they come to a clearing in the trees. He doesn’t find the human scary – it smiles too nicely – but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t dangerous. Or that it might not have other humans with it who are. Being out in the open makes him nervous anyway – he’s heard horror stories of birds flying off with fairies – but more so now that ever. He flies low, feet brushing against the grass. Kuroo doesn’t, seemingly unfazed as he loops around in the open space.
“Hey, Pudding Head?” Kenma turns, coasting along the wind on his back as he looks up at Kuroo. “Does your human have orange hair?” Kenma zips up faster than he’d ever admit to Kuroo’s side, eyes zeroing in to the same direction. Sure enough, nestled at the foot of a tree is his human.
“Yes.” The t-shirt it’s wearing today matches its hair.
“I think it’s sleeping.”
“Looks like it.” The sun skips across the human’s face through the cracks in the clouds. It looks softer than ever.
“It’s definitely not Sawamura.” Kuroo sounds more excited than Kenma thought he would. “Sawamura said there were loads of humans! Thousands of them!”
“Thousands?” That seems unlikely to Kenma. How could there be thousands of them and they’ve never met before?
“That’s what he said!” Kuroo throws out an arm to smack Kenma playfully. “You should ask him about it.”
“Why can’t you?” They share a look, one that confuses Kenma slightly until Kuroo’s face breaks out into a broad grin.
“You fly faster when you’re excited.”
“What?” Kuroo sticks out his tongue, fingers raised in a peace-sign.
“The apple pie probably needs to come out now; I don’t want it to burn. So, do me a favour and ask it if it knows Sawamura when it wakes up.”
“Kuroo?” Kenma stares at him wide-eyed. He can’t be serious? There’s no way he actually wants Kenma to sit around and wait for it to wake up?
“Report back when you have the answer!” And with that Kuroo turns away, giggles following after him as he flaps his wings twice the speed he knows Kenma’s capable of.
The human is still sleeping when Kenma makes his way over, hair fluttering in the soft breeze and hot breaths of air falling from his mouth. Kenma creeps as close as he dares, tucking himself low into a nearby camellia japonica until just his face is poking over the top. It’s peaceful watching this human sleep.
When Kenma opens his eyes again the sky is several shades darker and there’s a loud blaring sound assaulting his ears.
“Wah!” The human jerks awake, feet smacking harshly onto the ground near Kenma’s hideout and scrambles in its pockets. It makes a series of odd grunting sounds before the magical box slides out of its pocket; the blaring sound only gets louder. Until all at once it stops. The human holds it up to its ear, huffing out a huge puff of air that weirdly reminds Kenma of Kuroo.
“Dumbass!” Kenma shrinks down inside the camellia japonica when the human jolts on the spot, holding the box away from its face like it's infected with something. Maybe it is. It’s better to be cautious about these things. It curses, scowling at great length before dragging the box slowly back to its ear.
“Sorry, sorry, I fell asleep.” It doesn’t use a tone Kenma would usually associate with an apology, but perhaps human language inflection doesn’t work the same way as fairy. Kenma can’t make out what the person on the other end says, but it distorts the human’s expression into something sour as it drags a hand through its hair.
“I wasn’t looking for the fairy! I really fell asleep!” If Kenma were Kuroo this might be where he’d pipe up in the human’s defense and agree, but he isn’t, so he stays hidden. “I said I was sorry! I’m leaving now, I’ll be back soon, so you can chew my head off then.” It doesn’t wait for a response this time, closing the magical box and sighing into the evening sky above them. Kenma watches it watching the stars.
It doesn’t leave straight away, choosing instead to fiddle with the box some more, clicking it off a dozen times at the sky and some of the leaves of the tree. For some reason Kenma finds the way the human views the world around it refreshing, and kind of relaxing. It appraises everything for being beautiful or cute, even a toad that springs out from some mulch at the bottom of the tree.
Kenma thinks it would be a kind of funny if the human would crouch down to capture a picture of the camellia japonica, only to discover him inside. It doesn’t though, standing up fully to stretch and brush the grass off of its bottom. Probably Kuroo will be disappointed if he doesn’t at least try to ask about Sawamura. That’s what he tells himself anyway as he slowly floats upwards.
The human blinks half a dozen times in rapid succession. Kenma tries his very best to smile friendly, but is worried his urge to fly away is written all over his face.
“Hi?” The human tries, voice a lot, lot softer than yesterday when it had yelped in shock. It doesn’t come any closer either; probably worried it’ll scare Kenma off again. But Kenma’s going to be brave today. What would he have told Kuroo otherwise?
“Hello.” Kenma flutters an inch closer, noticing how the human’s eyes flick to his wings with an awe-filled expression.
“I knew you were real.” It smiles so warmly that Kenma wonders if the humans have similar tales about the fairies. Maybe the other humans mocked his human for believing the same way people mock Kuroo. It sort of hurts to think of others being mean to this soft, warm human.
“You’re real too.” He doesn’t mean for it to come across as an accusation, but it does, the words stinging as they fall from his lips. But the human doesn’t seem offended, throwing back its head to laugh loud enough to disturb a passing dragonfly.
“Yes! I am real too!” It takes a small step closer to Kenma, lowering its head a little to get a better look at Kenma and Kenma wills himself not to move. Kuroo would have told him if he thought his human was a dangerous one after all. “I’m Hinata Shouyou!”
“Hinata Shouyou.” Kenma repeats slowly. He nods; indicating that he’ll remember, even though there’s no way he’d be able to forget. “Do you know Sawamura?” Hinata hums consideringly, eyebrows furrowed.
“Sawamura-senpai?” Hinata’s head jerks, clearly taken aback. ”Sawamura Daichi?”
“I don’t know.” Kenma didn’t think to ask for Kuroo’s human’s full name.
“It might not be the same one,“ Hinata admits, sounding more apologetic now than he did on the magical box earlier, “but I had a Sawamura-senpai. He graduated and is studying at university now.”
“University?” Humans have universities too? Does that mean they’re education is the same? It’s funny to imagine the monsters from his childhood books coming to life and doing something as mundane and ordinary as going to university. Then again Hinata hardly fits any of the descriptions of monsters. It’s not hard to imagine Hinata bouncing off to university, smile on his face, excited to study plants.
“Yeah, it’s like a human place to learn? We go to school first and then after, if we get good grades and want to, we can study at university! A bigger human place to learn!”
“I know what university is.” Hinata stops talking abruptly. “I’m going next year.” Provided his grades are good, but really they tend to accept anyone who desires to study, as long as they’re passionate.
“Next year?” Hinata blinks. “Woah! You must be a year older than me then, if fairy university works the same as human ones.” Hinata frowns, eyes crossed in thought.
“You know about fairies?” Kenma drifts a little closer to Hinata’s face, close enough that he can make out the different shades of honey and brown in Hinata’s eyes.
“Yeah,” Hinata sounds strangely breathless at their close proximity, “but I didn’t believe you were real.” He swallows audibly. “They tell us you’re not real.” Kenma nods.
“They tell us you’re not real too.”
“Ey?” Hinata’s mouth drops open into a perfect circle; Kenma shifts a little higher and further away; just to be safe. “Fairies think humans aren’t real?”
“Mhm.” Kenma wants to ask if humans are told fairies are monsters made of rage and filled with spite. He wants to ask if human children wake up in the night scared of the gnashing teeth and crushing fists of fairies. But he doesn’t want to offend Hinata. “I knew you were real.” He settles on instead, hoping Hinata believes in him too, instead of thinking this is a particularly lucid dream. Hinata flushes, eyes falling away from Kenma.
“Well, I guess if you met Sawamura-senpai, you would believe in us, huh?” A half-smile tugs at the corner of Hinata’s lips.
“I didn’t meet Sawamura.” Kenma doesn’t know why it feels so important for Hinata to know that, but it does. Hinata’s eyes flick back up to regard him. “You’re the first human I’ve ever met.” Or watched. Or spoke to. “My friend Kuroo told me about Sawamura.”
“Kuroo?” Kenma doesn’t miss the spark of recognition in Hinata’s eyes, he nods, heart thudding a little in his chest for his friend. Hinata raises his hands to smoosh his hair together. “Crazy hair? Kinda like this?”
“You’ve met Kuroo?”
“Nah.” Hinata’s hands drop back down, smile brighter than ever. “You’re my first fairy! But Sawamura-senpai told me to say hi, if I bumped into Kuroo here.” Hinata laughs, the sound a warm, light tinkle. “I just thought he meant a local! Not a fairy!” So Kuroo’s human hadn’t told any other humans about them. Kenma nods, stretching his wings out a little where they’re getting sore from the slow, repetitive movements.
“Tell Sawamura Kuroo says,” he falters, unsure what message Kuroo would want relayed to his human, “hey.” He finishes feebly. Hinata nods, completely serious and hunches even closer to Kenma.
“Yes, sir!” Hinata mock-salutes, smile bright. “And,” Hinata’s tongue pokes out momentarily, “and what’s your name?” Kenma could lie, should lie probably. He still doesn’t know if this Hinata human is completely safe, but they don’t feel particularly malevolent and they know Kuroo’s human.
“Kenma. I’m Kenma Kozume.” He can feel his blood rising to his cheeks and hopes Hinata assumes it’s because of the cooler winds.
“Kenma Kozume.” Hinata repeats on a puff of air, eyes round and warm. “Ney Kenma, can I hold you?” Kenma flinches back, alarm bells sounding in his head, confused about the slight hurt look the falls across Hinata’s face.
“Hold me?” His voice sounds strangely breathless. Hinata’s hands lower slowly to the ground, and Kenma watches with growing curiosity as they’re tucked safely under Hinata’s knees.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Kenma flits an inch closer, studying the crestfallen way Hinata’s drooping, the small pout on their lips.
“Okay,” it could still be a clever human ploy to easily grab him, and yet Kenma doubts that very much. “Only for a moment though.” Hinata nods, eager and stunned all at once. It’s a nice look, Kenma decides as he floats slowly down towards Hinata’s unravelling hands.
“Oh.” A faint pink dusts the tips of Hinata’s ears. “You’re really light.” Hinata’s hands are soft under the soles of his feet.
“I don’t train as much as I should.” Maybe humans don’t have flight training, but they might have some kind of human equivalent. Leg training perhaps. Hinata’s hands rise at snail speed, bringing Kenma close enough that he can count each and every eyelash. He’s still not scared. Even though he could potentially be eaten at any moment.
“You’re really beautiful.” Kenma flushes, wings falling down at his sides as he tries to work out if Hinata is being sincere or not. No one has ever called him beautiful before.
“I–” Kenma’s interrupted by the loud jarring noises from Hinata’s magical box. Hinata groans, eyes flickering to the side for a second.
“Sorry,” the most apologetic voice of all, “I have to go. Kageyama’s gonna kill me!”
“Kill you?” Kenma blanches; clearly not all humans are as nice as his one. Hinata snorts out a laugh, loud and ridiculous in the evening glow all around them.
“Not actually kill me! Just yell a little.”
“Ah,” Kenma thinks of Kuroo at home alone with his freshly baked apple pie, probably fidgeting impatiently, “I understand.” Hinata grins, lopsidedly, face soft.
“Can I see you again?” Kenma’s sort of taken aback by that. As fairies go he’s fairly unremarkable and Hinata knows that Kuroo exists. Surely it would make more sense for Hinata to ask to meet a different fairy, a more exciting one. “You don’t have to answer,” Hinata hurries on, placing Kenma onto the ground delicately, “I’ll just come back here and wait for you every day.” Hinata nods, as if that’s the most reasonable solution, when really it sounds like a great inconvenience to Kenma.
“Every day?”
“Every day!” Hinata nods firmly.
“Okay.”
“Okay!” Hinata’s smile explodes onto his face, cheeks completely pink. “So I’ll see you tomorrow maybe?” Kenma flits into the air as Hinata stands back up, smiling when Hinata waves in farewell; it’s endearing that his human has so many fairy gestures. He watches as Hinata’s orange hair drifts through the trees away from him before turning and heading back; he likes Hinata but he doesn’t want to risk accidentally leading a human to their home.
“Tomorrow,” he mumbles to himself, a warm feeling spreading in his chest.