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It’s been almost two years since Kenma showed up on the other side of his dorm room doorway, gaze flitting only to Daichi’s face in peaks between focusing literally anywhere else. Kuroo mentioned you went here, too. That you would uh – help me if I got lost. I hope you don’t mind that he gave me your room number. It had been mumbled so quietly that if Daichi hadn’t met Kenma a handful of times before he wouldn’t have been able to pick out enough pieces to string the sentence together. He remembers that he had smiled back at him. Are you lost? Kenma had blushed, ducking his head down so his hair hid most of the pink on his cheeks. I wish my roommate would be. Daichi had stepped aside to let him in with no hesitation. Lucky that mine dropped out then, isn’t it?
By the end of the night, Kenma had asked, do you mind if I stay? Daichi had promised stay as long as you want. So Kenma stayed, and Daichi never minded. Not when a day turned into a week, turned into a month, turned into a year.
It had taken some time before Kenma warned up to him but not nearly as long as he thought it would. Sometimes, Daichi fondly reflects on the months leading up to the year mark – when he had said he was moving off campus for the following semester. You’ll come with me, won’t you? Kenma hadn’t even looked up from his game to answer the question. Yeah. Okay. There was a hesitation but Daichi hadn’t missed the curve at the corner of his mouth.
It wasn’t always easy. Kuroo and Suga would visit and the days following would leave the bittersweet taste of nostalgia in their whispered goodnights. Home was a far, far thing. Made more from the people they knew near them than the actual houses themselves. Their separate childhoods, rival high schools, their teammates, their friends carved holes in their hearts that the other couldn’t fill.
It had taken Daichi a while to realize it wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough, just different. Some things they couldn’t be for each other, despite everything else that they could. Kenma seemed to know all along and Daichi still aches over how lonely it must have been for him not to be able to explain it; to watch Daichi try and try and be unable to say You can’t help me with this.
He understands now though. Two years later, after witnessing the pattern over and over again. Kuroo was a foundation that helped Kenma to build himself; the same way Suga and Asahi had helped Daichi. While they could stand on their own just fine, and wonderfully together, it just wasn’t the same. Daichi knew now what Kenma meant when he said he missed home.
“I know it’s not the same—that it can’t possibly be,” Daichi starts, backpack slung carefully over his shoulder and smile painted across his face. It is a continuation of a conversation they’d had this morning, like all their conversations seem to be just one fluid thing. Paused at their separation and picked up again when they reunited. After all, unlike friends from home, they were only ever apart for a few hours.
“But I think I’ve found something that will at least make it easier. I know we said we weren’t going to do the Valentine’s Day thing, either so don’t think of it as a gift. It’s kind of for me, too, anyway.”
Kenma knows Daichi's excitement from the sound of his voice but peaks up from the ds in his hands to see the smile anyway. He knows, too, that the last bit of Daichi’s statement is a lie. Whatever it is he’s found, he intends entirely for Kenma to have all of it. The younger suspects that it’s an apple pie. He pauses the game, tentatively turning his full attention to his boyfriend, “What is it?”
Daichi nearly bursts at the seams, carefully pulling the backpack off his shoulders to reveal the grand surprise but it reveals itself with a quiet mew? before the zipper is fully undone.
Kenma’s eyes widen almost comically, golden and Daichi swears they glow just a little in the dim light of early evening that has crept in around them. There is disbelief touching the edges of his voice when he squeaks out “You didn’t” but he already knows the answer.
Daichi tells him anyway, his smile big enough to split his face, “I did—but it gets even better.”
His hand dips into the bag, gently pulling out a remarkably lanky but palm sized, all black kitten with golden eyes and the messiest fluff of fur between its ears. The semblance is almost uncanny. He sets it gently in Kenma’s outstretched hands and swears he hears him gasp as reality of the thing sinks in.
“You found Kuroo,” Kenma admonishes after a long pause of watery eyed staring and tentative pets, seemingly afraid that it was too good to be true. Sure, they both know it’s not the same but the kitten klutzes its way into Kenma’s lap and lays there, head on his thigh just like the real Kuroo has done countless times and so, close enough.
“Maybe for Christmas we’ll find Suga,” Kenma smiles, a real, unabashed upturn on up sides of his mouth, eyes crinkled shut. Daichi’s heart contracts, warm in his chest. “Well I found you, didn’t I?”
“Technically, I found you.”
“Lucky I got lost then.”
They stay there on the floor all night and neither of them mind.