Archive of Our Own

'That's not the point,' Kuroo is saying as Kei reaches down to retie his shoelace. A dry leaf catches on the thick fabric of his sleeve and he purses his lips in distaste, reaches to pluck it off first. 'The point is, I bought him that thing to use for Count Dracula. Not me.'

'That is the point,' Kei huffs, pulling his wire closer to his mouth to speak into the microphone. 'If you're sitting on his bed talking shit about equilibrium theory at three in the morning you need to be sprayed.'

'Tsukki, you know what anything even remotely wet does to my hair.'

'I know. That's precisely why you need to be sprayed.'

Kuroo's reply sounds distant and Kei frowns for a second before jumping a little when he hears a rather awful, sonorous kind of sound. There's a loud motherfucker that crackles through the line next, in Kuroo's I am personally offended this happened voice. Normally Kei would be concerned, but since he's only told Kuroo about twenty times a week to just put earphones in when he's baking while on the line, he doesn't feel too sympathetic. Plus, he might not know a lot about the culinary arts but he's pretty sure it can't be comfortable in any manner whatsoever to hunch one shoulder and keep one’s phone in place while one beats egg whites with the other.

'Did you drop it again?' Kei asks once he's tied his shoelace and Kuroo's back on the line. 'You're going to drop it in the batter one day.'

'The fact that you think I haven't done that already is insulting,' Kuroo shoots back. 'Look, wires are annoying, all right? I just don't like having things around my ears.'

'Oh, that’s rich, given that you sto—'

'Don't even go there. I was saying, Kenma's a shit.'

'And I was saying that he has a point,' Kei says, straightening up and glaring at a random tree just to have an arboreal placeholder for Kuroo. January's almost done with and while the cold has decreased enough that a thermal shirt under his hoodie suffices, the trees are all still bare. Kei doesn't really mind or anything in particular; not even his current situation has managed to make the biggest nature lover out of him (not that he's read up on it or anything. Kei doesn't have time to read about love). 'What even were you doing there?'

'Enjoying my last few hours of freedom,' Kuroo sniffs. 'You know I'll be wrapped up in the catering order now, the wedding's in two days.'

'Oh, I'm aware. That hideous invitation card hasn't left my memory yet.'

What Kei supposes he should be mildly surprised about is not the fact that he chooses to spend his walks between classes on these ridiculously brief (and ridiculous and brief) phone calls just to make sure Kuroo is still standing on his feet. That's not the surprising bit; it's common sense. What he supposes he should be mildly surprised about (but can't quite bring himself to be) is the fact that even though he can't see Kuroo, he can guess just by his voice and breathing what he must be doing in a particular moment. Right now he's shaking off something from a whisk, rhythmless tapping against the edge of a bowl that Kei can just barely catch on the line.

The imposing red brick building of his faculty looms up in his vision, stark against the grey winter sky and shadowing the dark brown reaches of the trees under it. He has a long afternoon ahead of him; three hours with that one professor who perches his glasses on top of his head when he gets excited about whatever slide he's pointing his laser at and then forgets to take them off for the rest of the class; and then an hour in the library with his group mates for the week's case study.

The thing is, it might be a long afternoon but those aren't out of the norm for Kei. He genuinely enjoys working, even if disagreements might arise (ranging from project cover design to whether that teaching assistant's latest tattoo is a pop culture reference or not) from time to time. Even if he has long days at university, he can pull through long nights; Oikawa wasn't entirely wrong the first time they talked. Kei might not deliberately stay up all night to work on something just for the satisfaction of it, but he does end up pulling late nights.

On the other hand, there's Kuroo.

'I have to go,' Kei says as he climbs up the first couple of steps. 'I hope I don't need to tell you that if you don't take a break, you'll be the one falling into the batter next.'

'Funny, Tsukki. Tell Takeda-sensei to keep his glasses on his nose this time.'

●●●

It's already past midnight when Kei finally wraps up chapter seventeen and heads into the kitchen just to stretch his legs out a little. To be fair, he only finished dinner at ten, and two hours for fair notes isn't all that long, especially not when he factors in the lag of winter evenings. His throat is burning a little from the hot chocolate that he miscalculated the proportions of, hands cramping a little from all the graphs. A break is in order, if only to make fun of wherever Kuroo has managed to spill batter this time.

'Seven tiers,' Kuroo says (again) the moment Kei steps in, and then backtracks (also again). 'All right, I'm the one who took the job, I know, I know.'

'I didn't say anything,' Kei says, raising his eyebrows.

'Yeah, but you were thinking it.'

'I say what I think.'

'No, you don't. Pass me the cherries.'

'Are you calling me a liar?'

'I didn't say that, did I? The cherries, Tsukki.'

Le Petit Passport belongs to Kuroo's father. Kei's known this since his birthday, with that ridiculous little muffin Kuroo got him. He also knows about the special parties that are hosted at the café sometimes, or the private orders, the special events. What he hadn't known until now was just how testy Kuroo can get; he understands Bokuto a little better now, with all the familiar annoyance he has towards half of what Kuroo does. (Not that Kei doesn't have annoyance towards half of what Kuroo does, he definitely does. It just might be a slightly different kind of annoyance, more in line with how the fact that he's still learning about Kuroo actually makes his heart do some funny things. Unfunny things.)

In a way, Kei wishes he'd kept track of it all from the beginning. And in another way, his mind is a little like an inventory anyway; he just has to rifle through the clear-plastic folders of his storeroom to pull out the one marked Kuroo, before. Before what, exactly, he doesn't know. Not before the tipping point of that one evening, not that, for sure. It feels older than that; maybe the first time Kuroo clicked his tongue at a calculation Kei got wrong and slid his notes over to correct them was what made some kind of fine divide between times. Or maybe it was the night of Kuroo's birthday, or maybe it was the fourth, fifth, sixth time they went out in the Cherry Red Prius.

Maybe there isn't really a divide, and before is just the earliest memories of Kuroo; rakish and loud and— and— infuriating. Exhilaratingly. Exhilaratingly annoying, the way he still is. Kei can only explain it through how refreshed he feels when Kuroo gets to him enough to make him raise his voice instead of sticking to sarcasm. Before is probably a time when Kei didn't enjoy someone getting a rise out of him, when—

'Fuck,' Kuroo hisses loudly, and Kei whips his head up. He's squinting, pained, at the oven as he blows on his right wrist, and Kei feels something catch in his throat for a second as he spots the clean red line of a burn. Not even first degree, won't even blister, but Kei's frozen on the spot for a second because his inventory has listed the bandaids but never seen the cause in action.

Before, then, is also a time when Kei wouldn't have immediately thought of pressing his lips to the mark.

'Ice,' he says blankly to Kuroo's wrist, and then blinks and looks up. 'Ice, genius.'

'Behind you, genius.'

And all right, so another thing Kei might have realised is that he is just as testy on his best days as Kuroo is on his worst, but that's only helping right now to cover up the brief flash of panic he had at seeing the discomfort on Kuroo's face. It's not a big deal, certainly not big enough for him to think about it as much as he is, but he supposes these are the little prices he's going to have to pay, has probably been paying all along since the first time he had to bring Kuroo back to the present on the sofa outside, right before Christmas.

He doesn't know what to make of it.

●●●

Me [04:10]
I've left the mugs next to the machine.

Me [saved as draft]
You didn't notice me leaving.

●●●

Yamaguchi, like the epitomic example of grace and finesse that he is, has managed to spill hot chocolate on his glaring yellow dog shelter sweatshirt. Kei is brought up to speed about this not through his own observation and curiosity, but through Yamaguchi volunteering the information himself. He relays it in the middle of his other rambling that does make its way to Kei's brain even if not as immediately as it normally would. It's one of those things that they share, he and Yamaguchi; Yamaguchi knows that Kei's only half-listening. The rambling is for the benefit of Kei having something to half-listen to instead of his own thoughts.

It's mostly working.

The weather is definitely warmer than it was last week, and Kei and his group members have a new case to work on, but somehow it's almost like Kei can't remember much of what happened in the past few days at all. He's no stranger to losing hours on the days after bad nights; he's (newly) no stranger to losing minutes to more pleasant things either. What he isn't familiar with is this, whatever this is.

See, a general, possibly worrying lack of enthusiasm for most things in life is one thing. Anxiety is entirely another.

'This is me,' Yamaguchi says, and it's only then that Kei realises they're already in front of the shelter. The Christmas decorations are still up; garlands and bells and Kei doesn't know what else, catching the sunlight and making him blink. 'Hey, eat something, yeah?'

'I ate.'

'What did you have?'

'Uh, eggs. And juice. Scrambled.'

Yamaguchi stares at him for a long moment, then sighs. It's probably that goddamn degree of his.

'Eat something,' he says again, and then he's waving, pushing the doors open.

Kei might not have owned up to the entire truth behind how disconcerting thinking so much about someone else feels— it's not that he only thinks negatively of it— but none of what he's owned up to is false. There is something disconcerting about not having as much negative space inside his head; he's never been a worrier of this sort, never really thought so long and so hard about a handful of unread— maybe read and ignored, who would he be to rule that out?— text messages. There is a dark little part of him that wonders if this is what Akiteru used to feel like, probably still does sometimes— but the volley that that thought brings is not something that Kei has the time to deal with.

Kei, honestly, doesn't have the time to deal with anything. There's a new case his group has this week, and finals will be here again before they know it. Every bit of credit counts when you can't trust your professor to set a decent enough question paper for you to maintain your average. The library is closing early in the evening for maintenance and he really wants to get all their work done before that, and then go back to his apartment and sleep, or fume at the ceiling, or fume at the ceiling and then sleep. Or maybe none of those; maybe he'll just go to another of the campus libraries and read into the night. That sounds good too. That sounds good.

Kindaichi pulls a laugh out of him the moment he enters the private room they've reserved; brightly lit, heated, an aquarium of a workplace inside the carpeted dark of the library. Kei snorts when he sees Kindaichi sprawled across the table with what looks like a year's worth of data scattered under his arms; pie charts and spreadsheets and what Kei is entirely sure is a detachable perfume sample. He sincerely hopes it's not one that he's allergic to; a migraine is really the last thing he needs right now.

In general it's usually his arrival that sets things into motion; he doesn't mind a healthy dose of procrastination himself, but most of the time everyone looks at the quiet way in which he sets up his table and follows suit, chastised without him having to do much. It's the same today; the lull of the thick winter afternoon does slow them down just a little, but eventually they get into the flow of it and the sheets start piling up neatly instead of being thrown around in a frustrated whirl. At the very least, Kei has never had to bluff about studying being one of his favourite things.

Which is why he can hardly believe himself when he unlocks his phone the moment everyone leaves for a coffee break. His innocently tile-patterned home screen looks up at him as dully as he's looking down at it, and he locks the phone once before taking a deep breath and unlocking it again.

Kei doesn't like anything that makes his heart beat faster for the wrong reasons, not when it's usually slow for all the wrong ones too. This sudden kind of— he hates it, hates to call it unraveling but that's what it is— it's catching him off-guard. He tells himself it's the circumstances, not the person. If Yamaguchi hadn't responded to him in four days, he'd be just as annoyed. He knows he would; it's not wishful thinking. But it's also not what's currently happening, and if Kei has an inventory on Kuroo, it's through fault of his own that Kuroo probably doesn't have one on him; if Kuroo doesn't know the way Yamaguchi does that Kei worries, worries if someone is so much as fifteen minutes late to lunch, it's because Kei says things like ice, genius instead of the truth.

Kei unlocks his phone again. When he goes through his favourites and taps, it comes over him in a wave— his decision is a mess; this half-ego, half-anxiety of not wanting to let it ring for more than half a ring. Kuroo will see it and call him back, or Kuroo will see it and ignore it, or Kuroo might not be seeing it at all because that's what people do when, well; that's what people do sometimes. Sometimes phones run out of battery.

But— half a ring might be too short for Kuroo to notice, and Kei hates everything for a solid, stinging moment. Lifts the phone back up, redials, holds it away from his ear. Just to avoid hearing the ring; he'll bring it closer if Kuroo's voice crackles through.

But it doesn't. It keeps ringing, faint rhythmic pairs in the quiet of the room, and after the sixth ring, Kei cuts the call and puts his phone facedown on the table.

●●●

'I'm about to step into the line of fire here,' Kunimi says when Kei's zipping up his backpack. He looks up and raises an eyebrow; Kunimi raises one right back. 'But you need to chill the fuck out about whatever it is and come with us.'

'Where?' Kei's zip gets stuck on a frayed thread; he purses his lips and yanks at it. 'And what do I need to chill about? Isn't the problem usually that I'm not excited enough?'

'Don't be a smartass. We're going to Vertigo.'

'Well, I hope Furihata doesn't fall on his face this time.'

'You should come with us.'

If Yamaguchi understands him, it isn't that he's trying to demonise the rest of the campus. If anything, Kei's learned this year that there are as many ways of accommodating him as there are people. He's as surprised about it as he should be, and lately, grateful too. His childhood friends are his childhood friends; no one will know as much about him as Hinata does, or Kageyama. But the realisation that people are quick to learn, that he's quick to learn— and willing, most of all— is oddly humbling. Kei turns down three invitations out of five when his classmates tell him to go out with them, but they never stop asking, because they know he won't always say no. The fact that they're willing to be turned down thrice just to have his company twice is something that he was convinced for the longest time that he doesn't deserve.

If for nothing else, it's for that reasoning that Kei does the mental equivalent of a you know what, fuck it, and shrugs in Kunimi's direction. 'We should grab dinner somewhere first.'

There is never a clear switch between a group discussing the Deepwater Horizon spill in the library and the same group staring at Oikawa Tooru's infamous I'm hitting on you just because I have this face smile at McDonald's. Academics slip into gossip as much as gossip slips into statistics, but without the underlying urgency of a project deadline, debates are a few degrees more enjoyable. Or at least, this one would be if Kei wasn't busy trying to uncurl the foreboding in his stomach. It's one of those rare times when he's said yes, I’ll come without really meaning to and now his food is lodged in his system somewhere, and all he can think about is how, if, he can still get out of this.

But Kei's never protested when he can't frame it snidely. Dinner is wrapped up with just the speed that a bunch of hungry college students are prone to demonstrate, and Oikawa is untying his apron behind the counter and winking at them as they step out of the door and into the night air. Kei lets the chill hit him for a moment before he zips his jacket up and sighs; it's still cold enough for his breath to be visible. Spring seems farther than winter seems long.

It's early enough that the bouncer at Vertigo doesn't give them a second glance before letting them in, and Kei hangs his jacket up and makes for the bar as quickly as he can. If he's here, might as well make the most of it; nothing will really matter once he's three drinks in.

The moment he steps into the actual live zone of the club, almost half his jitters are drowned in the music. Akaashi's not on his shift yet; it's still too early for him or Bokuto, and Kei almost prefers it this way. The DJ who works the happy hours is in her spot, playing the particular selection of mainstream that he's come to associate with her. The lights are a shade brighter than they'll be an hour from now; no one's drunk enough yet to not need them.

'Tequila sunrise,' he says to the bartender as Furihata struggles with hanging his thick scarf on one of the nails just under the edge of the counter. 'Actually, make that just tequila.'

'It's nine in the evening, child,' Furihata says, and Kei rolls his eyes at him, even though he has a point. But Kei has a point, too; a busy bar at nine in the evening is either someone who has not a single care, or way too many, and distraction helps with both of those. 'Whatever, I'll match you. It's the weekend, fuck it.'

'That's the spirit,' Kindaichi says. 'Get it? Spirit?'

'Oh, God,' Furihata groans, but Kei's lips are tugging upwards. He's getting better at backtracking these days; maybe he didn't really want to go out but wanted to go out a little anyway, and all right, he freaked. But that doesn't mean that his skewed intuition has to be right; if there's one thing he's learned apart from backtracking and how good friends can be, it's that if there are two hours for something to go wrong, there are also two hours for something to go right.

But then again, Kei shouldn't have unlearned his mistrust of the universe; if he had more sympathy for himself he'd call it an irony. Shameful.

Shameful, really, that the one time he tried to be optimistic, the universe arranged for him to fall on his face even more spectacularly than Furihata did the last time they were here.

He sees the electric blue of Kuroo's shirt before he sees the rest; rolled up sleeves as always, bandaids as not-always, the bright white of the T-shirt he's wearing underneath. Kei almost wants to laugh at how Kuroo refuses to be sloppy even though his face looks like he's been awake for all four days that he's been missing, but then again, Kei really doesn't want to laugh.

Resentment has an alarming speed. One second he's looking at Kuroo's trademark smirk, the next, he's turning around and stealing Furihata's shot right after his own. He doesn't even register the taste of it until it's down his throat, probably because bitterness has an alarming speed too.

He'd recognise Bokuto's booming laugh across rooms much louder than this one; his hand curls on the countertop, and he only nods quickly when one of them asks about a repeat shot. At least Kuroo’s been in touch with someone, then.

Oh, he's not jealous, good God; that's a low even he's not planning to hit this evening. No, what he is is just plain, old-fashioned angry. Not even as much at Kuroo ignoring him— and it stings the exact amount that he thought it would, admitting it so clearly— as he would've expected himself to be, but more, almost, at the schedule in his head that says that Kuroo was supposed to be working on another big order nonstop this week, and that he's still here even though his arms and legs must barely be working.

Then Kuroo is stepping up next to him, not looking at him, not realising it's him, and Kei stares openly at the exhaustion on his face, and sees red for just a moment.

That, he realises with a sinking, shameful feeling, is the root of the nervous, furious energy buzzing in the stretch under his ears, up the sides of his face. Worry, more old-fashioned than anger, and every bit as belittling as it should feel when it's not being accounted for by Kuroo. And then a part of him wonders what it must be like to be Bokuto, or Kenma who must use that spray bottle with such a straight face. Kei would be jealous now if Kuroo showed the slightest sign of listening to any of them more than he listens to Kei. Kei wishes he had the opportunity to be jealous, that Kuroo listened to Bokuto and slept in or slept at all, or that Sugawara or Oikawa snatched his spatula away from him with the authority that only old friends can have.

Instead, Kuroo is three minutes late to the party of Kei's quietly simmering presence; he has the decency to look sheepish when he greets Kei, but not enough to make excuses.

'Phone out of order?' Kei asks mildly, and Kuroo tightens his jaw and and smiles.

'Sorry about that,' he says. 'I kind of got caught up a little with work.'

'And now you're caught up a little with partying?'

'You know how I roll. Work hard, play hard.'

'Work hard, play hard,' Kei repeats, not trying to keep that insincere politeness out of his voice. 'Right. So what are your plans for the evening, Vercetti?'

Kuroo relaxes at the nickname and Kei regrets it immediately; he's not done being angry. He's nowhere near done being angry, and it only shows all too clearly when Kuroo replies. 'I'm here for a couple of hours, and then it's back to the mixing bowl. Just the last few—'

The last few. The last few tiers, cakes, orders, nights. Getting closer to a person is neither the walk of wonder that half the world says it is, nor the slump of disillusionment the other half claims it to be. Instead, it's almost a possessive sort of hunger; the satisfaction of knowing what he already does, the curiosity of wanting to know more. The fact that at least Kuroo let Kei know how hard he works— which makes his refusal to consider Kei's worries all the more hurtful. It's as if— as if—

'Just the last few,' Kei says. 'Right.'

Kuroo winks and turns away, asks for a screwdriver in his charming social voice. It's as if— what does the kid study, Kuroo?

Kei is too disoriented to order something else. His friends are right next to him but he doesn't take in their presence. It's as if— what does the kid study, Kuroo?

Something where he has an excuse to get off on all-nighters the way you do?

It's as if Kuroo enjoys this as much as Kei enjoys winning a verbal battle with one cold phrase. Enjoys dancing as close to the edge for the public as he can, look, there I go, oops, almost, that was close, enjoys the laughs he can pull with his antics; but doesn't enjoy being told to stop. Because disgusting coffee is as much a way of life for Kuroo as strawberry shortcake is for Kei, but the difference is that Kei hides himself fully and Kuroo functions on look but don't touch.

Before is a folder within a folder, of the day he met Kuroo. You could slow down a bit, maybe.

What's the fun in that?

'I'm leaving,' Kei says shortly to Furihata, and he's already reaching for his jacket by the time Kuroo turns to him with a frown. Kei doesn't look him in the eye; slaps down a few notes onto the counter and turns on his heel, head spinning.

●●●

January's almost done. His breath is still visible and the trees are still bare, but tomorrow the sun will be bright, and he'll have to wake up just as angry as he went to bed.

It’s quiet when he steps outside, of course it is. Surreally so, his mind still reeling from the contrast between the music inside and the silence outside, how quickly he can cut himself off.

He stops short just off to the side of the club's entrance, jams his hands in his pockets, exhales harshly. The ground is grey and plain, his sneakers a dull red against it, almost blending in. He needs to shut up and stop for a moment; if he starts walking home like this he's going to end up pacing under some streetlamp, fuming pointlessly. The least he owes himself is to calm down and take his feelings out on his schoolwork instead, the way he's always done it.

But then there's the sound of the heavy entrance door opening and closing, and even though Kei knows exactly who it is, he spares one thought of damn it, no.

To his credit, Kuroo doesn't say anything for a while. He just crosses his arms and leans against the wall next to Kei, stares at his own shoes. Kei can still see his stupid blue shirt, which is just fucking fantastic because apparently Kuroo Tetsurou doesn't even need protection against single-digit temperatures, which just fucking figures.

Kei's seething.

'I didn't mean to, you know,' Kuroo says finally, quieter than Kei remembers him being for a good few days now. 'I just got distracted.'

'Right, distraction. The ideal.'

'Hey, now. You know I want—'

'Results, yeah, I know,' Kei says, and he scuffs the top of his shoe into the ground, hides his wince when his toe catches. Walks a couple of steps away from Kuroo and glares at a streetlight, trying to calm the heat in his head. 'I'm just not the biggest fan of how you get them.'

'Whatever works, Tsukki—'

'Don't—' Kei whirls around, pulls his hands out of his pockets. 'Whatever works? You think this is working?'

'Technically, I am working,' Kuroo tries, but his grin is entirely lifeless, as if he already knows it's a lost cause, which he does. 'Listen. I know it's a little—'

'Oh, I know you know.' Kei's stepping towards Kuroo now, and the nervous energy he's been building up all fucking evening is finally getting an out; his hands are shaking by his sides but he doesn't even care enough to differentiate between adrenaline and fear, and it's probably the same thing anyway. Kei doesn't argue. Kei shuts people down before they can come up with so much as the start of an argument. Kei looks at people with enough disdain that they give up less out of intimidation and more out of spite. Kei doesn't do this, this fists-curling, breath-stuttering, tongue-twisting juvenile equivalent of a two-sided discussion, and he doesn't know if he's more angry about what Kuroo's doing to himself or what Kuroo's doing to him. 'You know full well, but you won't stop.'

Kuroo closes his eyes for a long moment, fingers visibly tightening on his own arms. Kei wonders absently if his wrist still hurts, and it fuels him anew but he needs Kuroo to say something so that he can swoop in and retaliate; he's too flustered to come up with something to say on his own, and that's a low he definitely didn't plan to hit tonight.

And what he's fumbling with is this— Kuroo opens his eyes and looks at him, he has that reminder again, the way he has been tasting it every single time he meets Kuroo's gaze these days. It's love. It's love, but Kei’s angry. And actually, that's a so, not a but.

'I want to know,' he finds himself saying, a little calmer if a little shakier. 'It's not about me. It's— I want to know. Why won't you—'

Kei's known Bokuto for a while now. Kei's known Kenma, and Sawamura, and Oikawa for a while now. He'll never know them as well as Kuroo does, maybe, but he knows they would never hesitate to step into the line of fire, say something at the risk of a fight. If there is no difference, it isn't that they don't want there to be. It— Kuroo—

When Kei was younger, years ago and not as many years ago, there were nights when he wasn't able to sleep. Yamaguchi would curl around him, talk and talk until Kei's eyes closed. Well past that. Months ago but not as many months ago, Hinata once refused to let him go until he accepted an embrace. Hours ago, Kunimi said I'm about to step into the line of fire here and then actually did it.

But Kuroo— Kuroo— who followed him into the bathroom at Sugawara’s place, who waited in his parking lot at the stroke of midnight to say happy birthday, Kuroo, who taught him how to slow dance when— when it isn’t that nobody cared, before, but that nobody dared—

'Why won't you let anyone in?’ Kei’s voice is embarrassingly weak, about to break. ‘Why won't you let anyone say—'

Kuroo cuts him off, and his voice is so low that Kei is almost rooted to the spot, hearing it. 'I'm not a child, Tsukishima. I can take care of myself.'

'Oh, yeah?' And all right, all right, Kei's never claimed to be the smoothest operator known to mankind; and he's never been in an honest-to-God argument with real stakes before either. The cold air between them is different from the polished wood of a podium at a debate; the strain of Kuroo's tired, tired arms the kind of case study Kei can't handle. He's schooled to shutting others down. He's not used to this ugly need to rile someone up, get to someone, somehow, anyhow. And not Kuroo, especially not Kuroo, who only ever toes the line when it comes to himself. Not Kuroo, who has never once done Kei the disrespect of invasion, not the way Kei is about to— and he knows it; knows it in the way an urgency is rising in his throat, something telling him to stop, just stop, take a breath, stop before he—

'Is that why you look so lonely all the time? Because you're taking care of yourself?'

Kei enjoys winning a verbal battle with one cold phrase as much as Kuroo enjoys showcasing his dubious lifestyle and leaving it untouchable. That is to say, it comes as a bit of a surprise when all he feels at the tail end of his question is the most acute of horror.

The utter lack of expression on Kuroo's face is the most expressive he has ever seen Kuroo look.

Kei thinks, for a wild moment, that he's going to heave up everything he has not eaten since this morning. The words don't so much hang between them as they frost over, spikes in the night air, sharp, suspended. He has to face them in a new way every second that passes; a new way in which he's fucking done it now.

And he can't do it. He can't face those words that came out of his mouth, not with every single time he's seen Kuroo's smile soften rushing through his memory. Not with every single time he's seen lonely face to face in the lights of a café that Kuroo made home for him. Not with Kuroo's voice still in his head, singing that song about wanting to be loved.

So he turns away, hands itching to fly to his face but too weak to move. He blinks unseeingly at them; pale skin, pink from the cold, and his entire being feeling worse by the second.

The empty road is unsympathetic, and the terrible feeling in his chest comes to a head, and he turns back around—

But Kuroo's already gone.