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The thing is— no, really, the thing, the actual fucking thing is, not a single human being among the many that he has come across in his eighteen years on the planet— no, the thing is not one person told Kei that being in love is this goddamn time-consuming.
He knows that once he's advanced enough in the art of it— right, him and art, right— he might actually be able to slot out time. 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM, classes. 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM, lunch. 1:00 PM onwards, be in love with Kuroo Tetsurou.
But the thing is, that's for later, when he is advanced enough in the art of this thing. Right now, he's really, really not, and there is no amount of hand-gesturing and eyebrow-raising and sardonic-laughing that can convey the way his mind is numb with helplessness. He's offended; he really is. It's not supposed to be this way. Not his brain.
(All right. He's calm.)
Truth be told, he isn't silly enough to think that there was some final tipping point into falling into the feeling itself. This isn't out of nowhere, and that's what bothers him the most— he was doing just fine not five days ago, with maybe a little bit of denial to go along with morning coffee but nothing drastic. Studies were studies, friends were friends, life was life. No, if there was some final tipping point— and he can't believe it was such an obvious one, such an easy one, too simple an event for his dignity to bear; a song, a fucking song— that tipping point was only the idea of it coming out into the open. Having a name.
It's not like he was fine five days ago because he wasn't feeling it already. He was fine because he didn't know what the hell it was.
He doesn't know whether to find it relieving or offensive that not a single thing has actually changed after that evening at the café. Studies are studies. Friends are friends. Life is life. Nothing has changed, right from Monday morning public finance to Thursday evening international trade, the sound of Hinata's scooter over the pavement, the January cold, the unfortunate taste of the green tea that Yamaguchi made him have just this afternoon.
No, nothing has changed. Not even him. The only thing that has changed is time. It...passes differently. See, Kei's always been good at managing time. He isn't late for class excepting the rarest occasions (yes, bad nights included); he's usually early for everything if he can make it early; if he says he'll be done with something in forty-five minutes, then he's fucking done with it in forty-five minutes.
Usually.
Actually, yeah, it's offensive. He's offended. Time has changed and he didn't ask for that, just like a dozen other things he doesn't recall asking for in the past six months. And because he didn't ask for it, he has no idea how to deal with it. He's not sure what to do with the fact that a half-hour lunch is now ten minutes of frantic eating because it was twenty minutes of staring at a dent in the table of the commerce faculty cafeteria. Or the fact that the fifteen-minute walk to and from the heart of the campus (when he'd usually listen to a podcast to get his mind going) is now eaten up so that he's at class before he knows it, or lost in the mist so that he doesn't know why he reached home half an hour later than he was supposed to.
And it's offensive. Kei has things to do. From the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed, he's slotted out time for everything. If he's lying around not doing anything, he's planned to lie around and not do anything. But all of this, this isn't planned. This isn't part of a schedule and it's so aleatory that he can't even fit it in somehow. Not yet, at least, since he's not advanced enough yet.
That's another offensive thing. The fact that now he has a name for it, it's almost become a subject of its own. A university module that he has to get better at with time, and that he will get better at, because time will pass and this subject is still going to be on his syllabus.
It's an elective, but it's also not. That, Kei thinks, is the most offensive bit of all.
●●●
‘So Aomine busted his phone last night,’ Kise is saying to Shimizu and Michimiya when Koushi opens the door to let them in. ‘And you won’t believe the shit I had to put up with.’
‘I’m listening.’
Koushi steps aside so that they can step in, and then ducks back to look beyond the door, frowning a little. His and Daichi’s apartment has an open hallway that gives them a good view of the basketball court of the residence area, and usually it makes for some nice background noise to his schoolwork. Right now, though, Koushi is frowning for a different reason. The sky is awfully dark (and dark too early) even for the thick of winter that January is still in. In general, Koushi has nothing against rain (as long as he isn’t caught in it outside and without warning or umbrellas) but given that Iwaizumi and Oikawa have yet to arrive, he’s a little worried that by the time they reach they’ll be absolutely drenched. He doesn’t fear much for Iwaizumi, who has the immune system of a beast, but Oikawa will throw a fit and a half about his hair and his clothes and only register half an hour later that he’s caught a cold, none of which will be too pleasant to deal with. (Koushi loves him dearly, but a fussy person is a fussy person. Oikawa is…slightly fussy.)
‘So the only button that works is the lock one, right? And that just snoozes the alarm.’
‘Right.’
‘So all morning, I was lying there listening to his alarm every ten minutes, waiting for the fucking phone to die,’ Kise says. It’s very clearly through gritted teeth, so Koushi closes the door quickly to get back to him as he takes off his shoes. Daichi is leaning against the doorframe too, watching with undisguised amusement as Kise unwraps his scarf. ’Which would maybe be fine, if his alarm wasn’t the fucking John Cena theme.’
Michimiya stops unzipping her boot and bursts into laughter, sitting down on the step even as Shimizu rolls her eyes. ‘Oh my God,’ she wheezes. ‘What did you do?’
‘I put it in the cooler on the balcony,’ Kise says darkly. ‘It can blare to itself until it dies.’
‘Shit like that is exactly why I’m single,’ Daichi says, raising his eyebrows and pointing at Kise. ‘I’d be on his ass like I never hit a bitch so fast—’
‘Don’t even try,’ Kise shoots back. ‘Like Suga doesn’t have some bullshit harp tune for his 6 AM pilates.’
‘I have never done pilates a day of my life,’ Koushi says. ‘Put your bag away and get inside, please.’
Weekends. Koushi often feels like he is so used to pulling things together, making them work, smoothing out the wrinkles, that the wear and tear of daily life only catches up to him on weekends. Yes, he’ll still wake up exactly when he said he would, but for weekends he works in an hour or two of just sitting on one end of the couch, legs tucked under a cushion and a mug of tea. The morning fog is something he loves to see, and even more, he loves to see how the sunlight makes it disappear smear by smear, putting the day into motion. It’s always quiet, just the way Koushi likes it.
What he likes even more, perhaps, is the promise of company in the afternoon. Having the biggest apartment in their group of friends has never really had a flip side, unless he counts that one memorable occasion of projectile vomiting that followed Tanaka And Nishinoya Meet Skittles Vodka. On the other hand, Koushi has never minded company; he loves being the host, making sure everyone’s comfortable, that the food is warm and drinks are cold (or, well, also warm given that they are still in the thick of winter). He loves talking almost as much as he loves listening, and everyone is family at this point.
Asahi and Ushijima only look up briefly from their respective books— weekends are as much a time to catch up with life’s wear and tear as they are for it to happen the other way ‘round— to greet the others, and this is also one of Koushi’s favourite parts: watching everyone find their favourite spots on the couch and settle down quickly, naturally; Shimizu always on the single one with Michimiya perched on the armrest next to her; Kise sprawled across the opposite armchair and already back to scrolling through his phone; Iwaizumi on the floor when he arrives, back to the three-seater and one knee pulled up to his chest. Oikawa right behind him. In a way it’s always shifting, and in a way it feels like they’ve been sitting in the same spots since they were all eighteen.
‘Suga, not to be that guy,’ Daichi says, and Koushi blinks and turns to him. ‘But you totally look like a proud dad right now.’
‘You are being that guy.’
‘You’re being that dad. I didn’t know Aomine and Kise’s dysfunctional romance was so moving.’
Koushi rolls his eyes and swats the back of Daichi’s head just in time for the first thunderclap. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not the romance that’s moving. It’s Aomine’s taste in alarm tunes.’
‘Sure, mister harp.’
‘I KNEW IT,’ Kise crows, as Koushi haughtily stalks past him to close the balcony doors. For a moment, Koushi thinks he’s going to follow up with I knew you two are, which they aren’t, but he doesn’t. ‘I knew it would be a goddamn harp.’
A harp, yes. Koushi turns the handle and smiles at the sky. A harp, definitely.
●●●
Le Petit Cloud is warm when he steps inside, in this immediate manner that always throws him off a little in the beginning. There’s something about the sheer contrast of it—he can still see the grey sky through all the glass, the dark clouds rolling and gathering with promise; and yet it’s cozy enough that he can take two layers off and still be comfortable. Call him silly, but there’s something about glass that makes it hard to believe that the cold won’t seep in after all.
‘Good timing,’ Kuroo says from behind him, and, fine. Kei jumps a little. Not enough for Kuroo to notice— God knows Kei’d never be living that one down— but enough for his fingers to jerk and curl into fists. ‘Looks heavy out there.’
‘You know I don’t mind a little rain.’
‘That’s not just a little rain, sugar.’ Good God, sugar. ‘Even I wouldn’t take my car out in that shit.’
And, well, truthfully speaking Kei doesn’t think there’s anything in the world— typhoons, his math professor, whatever— that would ever fully hinder his ability to make a sharp comeback if the opportunity for one exists (except for early mornings, because those are The Enemy and should not be counted in any statistical statements). So, regardless of the fact that he is in very time-consuming love with Kuroo Tetsurou, he turns around with an unamused raised eyebrow.
‘I wouldn’t put it beyond you, Vercetti,’ he says. ‘All things considered.’
‘Will you ever let that go?’ Kuroo sighs. He’s in his apron again, even though it’s maintenance day. It’s not like Kei would put that beyond him, either, all things considered. Maintenance day doesn’t mean anything very different to Kuroo; Kei’s seen him don the apron and slave through all sorts of bank holidays and even the last day before Kei left for Christmas.
Work is second nature to both of them, but in different ways, he thinks. Kei likes the rhythm of slaving over something; likes being meticulous with his notes and diagrams, the soothing hum of focusing on one thing for hours straight. Kuroo, he’s observed, works to get fast results and likes to do a dozen different things at once, as if he’s afraid that one of them will stop distracting him without warning.
‘I won’t,’ Kei answers. ‘You try almost being run over—’
‘It’s been six months, Tsukki,’ Kuroo says. ‘Of all the things I’ve done to offend you in six months, why do you hang on to the only one I didn’t do on purpose?’
‘Because it’s proof that you were sent into my life with the express mission of making it difficult?’
‘Okay, I’ll give you that one.’ There’s a couple of square bandaids on Kuroo’s arm, white and neat, that Kei notices when Kuroo motions towards the couch. And all right, so maybe he’s gotten a little better at noticing things since the whole evening, but it’s almost like every new thing he notices turns him towards yet one more thing he doesn’t know about Kuroo, and the thing is, that curiosity was never really a problem before. He was fine with learning things at whatever pace they came to him in. Things were just fine. And now he wants to know everything, right now, and at the same time doesn’t want to know anything at all, almost wishes that he could forget what he already knows. Start over, nicer this time, no Cherry Red Prius.
And then it wouldn’t be the same. And he wouldn’t be here right now.
Scratch that.
The bandaids aren’t alarming. For someone who moves with the grace of felines more blessed than Kenma’s…thing, Kuroo isn’t actually the most gifted with the very device he uses to express his love to the community. That is to say, Kei has lost count of the number of times he’s had a textbook open on the bar counter and heard muffled cursing from the kitchen as Kuroo catches some part of his anatomy on the hot edge of the oven again. And…well. Kei hates to say it. He really does. But it’s kind of, well. Kind of in the same vein as the stupid warm feeling he gets when he sees Kuroo’s unintelligible handwriting or the petulant air he gets around Kenma. The reminder that he’s not perfect, actually, so…so he’s not perfect.
And in light of how the memory of Kuroo singing still hasn’t even begun to cool, let alone crystallise, it’s a welcome reminder.
Anyway, the bandaids aren’t alarming. What is a little annoying— okay, maybe a little alarming too— is that he only noticed them recently, when he’s already known about all the variations of ouch and motherfucker that Kuroo hisses from time to time. It’s that kind of stuff that drives Kei up the wall, see. That he was already head over heels into this disastrous thing but he was at peace because he didn’t know what it was.
All right, he’s calm. Going in circles is not something he does.
‘Uh, Tsukki,’ Kuroo’s saying when he blinks away from the bandaids and at the rest of him. ‘The couch. Sit, maybe?’
‘Right,’ Kei says. ‘Sorry, I just—’
Now, Kei doesn’t scare easy. It’s not because he’s the toughest human on the planet or anything like that; it’s just that he isn’t the kind of person to get startled easily. He doesn’t jump. But sometimes there are forces that are beyond one’s control and also beyond any measurement of normal size, like Hinata on a scooter, Bokuto in general, and that really fucking loud roll of thunder that just interrupted him right now.
So he jumps. Noticeably, this time, but he doesn’t care about that because the upwards hunch of Kuroo’s shoulders is just as noticeable.
All right, so they both jumped. Kei wants to laugh, but, well, he jumped. Kuroo seems to be following the same logic, because he’s just looking blankly at Kei the way Kei is looking at him, and they’d better look away if they don’t actually want to burst into laughter.
‘Told you it looks heavy out there,’ Kuroo says, and his smile is in his voice. ‘Sit.’
●●●
Everyone is actually indoors and safe by the time the rain starts to come down fully. Iwaizumi and Oikawa make it in by the skin of their teeth; quick enough to avoid any sneezing fits but not quick enough for the rest of the room to escape Oikawa’s five-minute eulogy for the wellbeing of his hair. Definitely not quick enough for them to escape Ushijima offering, in earnest, to write an actual eulogy.
‘I’m good, Ushijima,’ Oikawa says, sniffling. ‘You’re my only friend.’
‘That’s right,’ Iwaizumi says. ‘Because I’m just the umbrella-carrying bodyguard, ain’t I.’
‘Make up your mind, Iwa-chan. You can’t date me, be my friend, and my bodyguard at the same time. It’s a pick any two kind of thing.’
‘Shut up, you shit. I’m not dating you.’
‘Sure you aren’t.’
Koushi leans against the counter and checks his nails absently as he waits for the kettle to come to a boil. Rain, of course, calls for tea, although Daichi would say that everything calls for tea according to Koushi, and he wouldn’t be wrong. Especially given the fact that about half of their pantry is just different boxes of tea, Koushi doesn’t see much point in denying his preferences. All that being said, rain really does call for tea, especially rain of this kind, that he can hear all the way in the kitchen. It’s almost louder than it is outside, closer to the balcony; here, with no one but him, it seems to beat down harder, and duller. The kind of rain one loves to listen to from the safety of home.
Outside, Daichi laughs at something, loud, deep. Koushi smiles as the kettle starts to whistle, and he counts out Earl Grey versus Darjeeling. It’s four and four, and the mugs are already lined up in the tray. The steel of the kettle is hot even through the cloth in his hand, and that’s one of Koushi’s favourite things too. The way thermoses retain heat, and the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night to a warm blanket, and the spicy taste of his favourite tofu right before a performance.
There’s a long rumble just then, longer than the previous ones and definitely more threatening. But Koushi only laughs, because all he hears after it are cheers from the living room. It’s not the first time he’s thinking it and it definitely won’t be the last, but he must be one of the luckiest people in the world— he never left home, not really. This is home just as much as the house he goes back to in the summer is, with his family and his old bedroom and the carrots he planted in the garden.
When he takes the tray outside, everyone’s attention is glued to yet another argument between Kise and Oikawa, the theme of the month being whether ugly sweaters are endearing or simply ugly. (Well, almost everyone. Ushijima, utterly uninterested, is going through his book as if he can’t hear explosions along with all the thunder. Koushi admires his ability, really.) Oikawa, a firm supporter of burn those things and bury the ashes, hasn’t backed down yet, and it’s been nearly a month since Christmas. Koushi wonders, as he looks around for a place to sit, what they’re going to do once winter is over.
The couches are all occupied, Iwaizumi in his spot on the floor. So Koushi waits for everyone to take their tea before picking up his own mug, and perches instead on Daichi’s knees. He leans forward to listen better to the heated words his friends are throwing at each other, because if an intervention is required it’s definitely going to be him who does it. (It’s what he does, after all; smoothing out wrinkles, the works.)
The rain doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon, which isn’t a problem at all.
●●●
A roar, incredibly loud.
‘Seven.’
‘Are you kidding? That’s eight point five, at least.’
‘I’ve heard louder.’
‘Where, in the temples of the thunder gods—?’
One more. Really, really, really loud.
‘What the hell,’ Kei says blankly.
‘Okay,’ Kuroo says, and he sounds just the right mix of amused and startled. ‘All right, now that was an eight point five.’
‘Kuroo, either you secretly live on a mountaintop or you’ve been using my headphones too often. That was, like, an eleven.’
‘You’re telling me that sofa scratch was an eleven? You should come hiking with me and Koutarou sometime.’
‘No, thank you. I hate hiking.’
‘Oh, come on. Fine, we can take the drive.’
‘Negotiable.’
Another one, a little frail, honestly.
‘Four,’ they both say, and then snort.
Kei wasn’t really talking through his hat when he said there are very few things in the world that can mess with his ability to be condescending towards the quotidian (or the non-quotidian, as he is skilfully demonstrating in this very moment). All right, so he might now have a very upsetting explanation for weird little tricks something in his chest does when Kuroo bends over his laptop and his profile stills and sharpens, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get into fewer arguments with the guy. It just means that every little back-and-forth has a fresh sting to it. But a good sting, Kei means to say.
He doesn’t even know what that means.
Anyway. Since there are very few things in the world that can mess with his ability to be an ass, it follows that there are very few things in the world that can actually distract him from his work. And no matter how time-consuming being in love actually is, it just means that he has to focus harder on getting the academic aspect of his schedule down pat. Which means that there is no way in hell that Kei is going to cut his trips to Le Petit Chucky T short just because he happens to be in love with the owner. No. He likes his spot on the floor by the coffee table, and he’s going to keep it, along with the free hot chocolate and useless banter, such as—
‘Holy seventeen,’ Kuroo says. ‘That wasn’t even a thunderclap. That was thunder-applause.’
Such as rating thunderclaps on a scale of one to ten, where one is this wouldn’t scare a butterfly and ten is Gecko Tooru is angry about something. Because that is exactly what one is supposed to do in situations like these, when one is rained in at the best café on campus with the worst boy on campus with no hope of getting out in the near future. Also, it’s exactly what one is supposed to do when one doesn’t actually harbour hope of getting out in the first place. That is to say, when there is a distinct lack of desire to escape.
‘Thunder-applause,’ Kei repeats, closing his eyes slowly for effect. ‘Kuroo, please just shut up and get back to work.’
‘You started the ratings.’
‘Did not. You texted me the first one.’
‘You opened the text.’
‘You sent it.’
‘Yes, but you opened it.’ Kuroo’s grin is unapologetic, and handsome, and unapologetically handsome. Not that he has anything to apologise for, at least in the being handsome department. And well, Kuroo is obnoxious enough that even if he knew how handsome he was— which, despite everything, Kei doesn’t think he actually does— he wouldn’t really be sorry about it. Which he shouldn’t be. Since he’s handsome. ‘Give up, Tsukki. You’ve already done your two chapters of the day.’
‘Can’t hurt to put a little extra in.’
‘Sure,’ Kuroo says. ‘But not today. You can’t let this weather go to waste.’
‘Please tell me you aren’t suggesting that we go out and run around, or something.’
‘Are you kidding? You think I want to take my hair’s hatred for me to the next level?’
Kei allows him a laugh at that one, because the visual of how stupidly frizzy Kuroo’s hair would probably end up being after all that rain is too funny to ignore. But see, all that used to be just fine. Now he has to deal with the following involuntary visual of Kuroo actually out there in the rain, clothes sticking to his golden skin, hair drenched and matted together and raindrops spilling over his cheekbones and jaw even as he grins at Kei— and all that, see, all that—
He knows what bothers him the most about it all. It’s not that it’s time-consuming. It’s not that he has to start walking to class while he’s still chewing the last of his salad after lunch. It’s not that he has no idea what episode of that goddamn spaceship drama thing he last listened to.
It’s the fact that what started it all was Kuroo telling a room full of people who were not Kei, that he’s in love with Kei.
Rating thunderclaps on a scale of one to ten is one thing when he’s doing it with the guy he’s in love with. It’s another thing altogether when he’s doing it with a guy who’s in love with him and has been looking at him for months, so that he doesn’t have to supply any expressions from his imagination. He shouldn’t be able to visualise the grin on Kuroo’s face in the rain, but he can, because he’s seen it already.
‘So what should we do, then?’ he says, clears his throat midway because his voice isn’t strong enough.
Kuroo’s not-really-in-the-rain-but-might-as-well-be smile grows wider. ‘How about another rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody?’
●●●
‘Bullshit,’ Daichi says. When he leans forward, the arm he’s wrapped around Koushi’s waist gets tighter. ‘There are only two possibilities. Either you like ice cream, or you’re dead inside.’
‘Then it’s a damn miracle that you can talk to him, isn’t it,’ Oikawa says drily. ‘I don’t get it, Sawamura. Why can’t the man dislike ice cream in peace?’
Koushi waits for Iwaizumi to point out Oikawa’s bubble tea preferences, but apparently the cause of converting Ushijima to team ice cream is noble enough that even antagonising Oikawa is out of the question; Iwaizumi has turned around to face Ushijima, back to the coffee table, and is glaring up at him with a surprising intensity given that Koushi thought he could only muster that towards Oikawa. ‘Ushijima, man. You need to try mocha ice cream. Have you tried mocha ice cream?’
‘I fail to see how that would help,’ Ushijima says. Beside him, Asahi has completely given up on his marketing textbook and is watching with avid interest. ‘It is the very texture of the item that I dislike, so changing flavours would do little to change my opinion.’
‘Man’s got a point,’ Kise says, pointing a finger backwards at the couch without looking away from his phone. ‘A rose is still a rose, and all.’
‘No,’ Iwaizumi says. ‘Look, I get that. But mocha ice cream, dude.’
Daichi settles back against the couch cushions, pulling Koushi a little along with him. Koushi manages to set his empty mug aside just in time to fall back too, smiling at the absent drumming of Daichi’s fingers against his thigh. It’s cold enough now that he’s going to have to turn on the heat, but it’s all right for a few minutes yet. The tea is still warming him from the inside, and everyone looks comfortable. Home changed teams from place to concept a while ago.
‘Okay, stalemate,’ Daichi says. ‘Look, Wakatoshi. Do you like milkshakes?’
‘I do like milkshakes.’
‘So just think of ice creams as solid milkshakes, right? And—’
‘D-Daichi, no offence, but it’s— I mean, it’s not like he’s stopping you from having ice cream, so—’
‘Checkmate,’ Michimiya says. ‘You just got Asahi to speak up. Disqualified.’
‘Suga,’ Daichi moans. ‘Veto that.’
Koushi pretends to consider it for a moment, but at the end of the day, home is also a set of habits that he never left, and if tea is one of them, annoying Daichi is another.
‘Absolutely not,’ he says. ‘Disqualified.’
(He never left home. Home, he thinks, he took right with himself.)
●●●
‘And this one,’ Kuroo says, changing the positioning of his fingers over the fretboard, ‘is called I hate when people eat the icing off the cupcake and then eat the rest of it because I spend half my life trying to get the balance between the two.’
‘Oh my God,’ Kei says, after he’s made sure his hot chocolate isn’t going to spill with the force of his laugh. ‘Okay, I didn’t even know that’s a thing.’
‘It very much is,’ Kuroo whispers, widening his eyes and leaning forward. It’s so unnecessarily dramatic that Kei has the urge to flick him on the forehead, but he holds back. ‘I spend all these hours tasting until I can’t even tell the difference, and some fucker comes in and scoops all the icing off with his damn spoon. It hurts, Tsukki.’
‘Good thing I don’t like icing,’ Kei says. ‘I’d do it on purpose otherwise.’
‘And I’m the nasty one.’
‘Tell me, how many of your things have I stolen in the past six months?’
‘Only one,’ Kuroo says, and winks. And the thing is, Kei can admit that even back when things were fine, the wink would’ve permanently destroyed a small part of his soul, for the audacity if not the implication. But right now, it almost makes him want to laugh. Because yeah, Kuroo’s winking like the little brat he is, but it’s because he doesn’t know Kei was there that evening. That Kei knows the truth Kuroo’s trying to hide in plain sight.
Even though it’s been so long, it’s the first time he’s actually seen Kuroo pull out his guitar. For something that Bokuto claims is such a part of him, Kei doesn’t know if he should be hurt that he hadn’t seen it sooner. But that doesn’t matter, because it’s here now. All Kuroo’s done so far is play disjointed chords and sequences from movies, talking about how much better Himuro is at it. That doesn’t matter either, because all Kei’s done is stare at the way the tip of Kuroo’s thumb presses down on the strings and how he concentrates when he tunes it.
It’s overwhelming, in a way. To understand so much more. Not just about what he’s been doing but about Kuroo, too. Like the little bandaids on his arms, there are other things about him that come into notice now. There’s an extra ache to the memory of Kuroo’s sleeping face, a louder laugh for his stupid jokes. Something hooking and catching on Kei’s ribs when he thinks of every single time that Kuroo has been quiet. Tired, or focused, or unaware of Kei’s gaze.
It’s the kind of thing that he can’t turn over on its front and ignore. He can’t look at Kuroo without remembering the kind of face he had that evening; he can’t hear Kuroo’s voice without remembering it shaping those words. Everything— except for this thing between them, that remains the same— that can change, has changed. And that’s…yeah, that’s the truth. Nothing has changed, because everything has changed. Time has changed, everything shifting half an inch to the right, the universe upping the game from the usual fuck you to no, really, fuck you a whole lot.
‘Hey,’ Kei says, and it’s like a part of him is outside himself, hearing himself say the words. ‘You know, I thought you’re supposed to be a hotshot and everything.’
‘You thought absolutely right,’ Kuroo says, leaning back and striking a stupid pose with his stupid guitar. ‘I am the hottest hot to ever shot.’
A roll of thunder-applause. His mug is on the coffee table.
‘Then you should sing me a song, no? A proper one?’
Le Petit Officially Gone.
Kuroo misses a beat with his reply, and Kei’s heart does the same when he speaks. ‘A song.’
‘That’s right,’ Kei says, in that same voice. ‘Or is it that you can sing in front of others, but not me?’
All things considered, then. All things considered, Kei has gotten good at giving back to the universe. Having the upper hand isn’t a habit yet, but even if he might only get to see the slow change of realisation on Kuroo’s face once, it’s worth six more weeks of shin-kicking.
‘Ah,’ Kuroo says, then swallows. ‘Okay. Right.’
Having the upper hand also means he’s feeling generous. He lets a dozen possible quips go and opts to just raise his eyebrows at Kuroo instead. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his heart is in his throat and he probably wouldn’t be able to get his voice out if he tried, because those are not things that affect Kei. Not even now, when things are decidedly not fine.
Then Kuroo takes a deep breath and smiles. It’s different. It’s smaller, and it’s like Kuroo’s gaze is inwards. His hands still on the guitar, feet still on the floor beside Kei.
Kei waits.
‘Okay,’ comes the quiet continuation, finally. Kuroo straightens up and doesn’t look at Kei, until he’s repositioned his guitar. Then he looks down and grins as wide as he always has, and raises his eyebrows. And honestly, Kei never had a goddamn chance with any of this. ‘All right, here goes.’
Kei leans against the table. Kuroo closes his eyes, and takes another breath.