Work Text:
For as long as they’d known each other, Kenma and Kuroo had walked home from school together. It was only natural. After all, they lived so close to each other, and they were best friends, so why wouldn’t they? Plus, as Kuroo liked to joke, someone had to be there to keep Kenma from walking into a stop sign when he had his nose stuck in a game. And it was a joke, because Kenma — probably — would have been fine on his own. It was a joke, because Kenma was honestly the most observant person either one of them knew. It was a joke, because Kenma could take care of himself if he really had to.
It was a joke, until it wasn’t.
Practice had gone late. Training camp was coming up, and Kuroo was determined to win more matches than Fukurodani. Kenma didn’t mention the time, figured someone else was watching the clock, and if they weren’t, well. At least Kuroo was content. He seemed to be all Kenma cared about lately — was Kuroo happy? (Usually, yes.) Did he get enough to eat? (Never.) Had he done well on that morning’s test? (When didn’t he?) Because at some point, Kenma had found himself completely in love with his best friend. It was miserable.
Being in love was one thing. Kenma would have managed fine were it literally — literally — anyone else in the world. Anyone else in the world, he wouldn’t see on a daily basis, wouldn’t have to listen to their passionate rants about a dog they’d seen on a morning run, wouldn’t find himself crushed next to them on a narrow couch every Saturday night for another droning documentary about plants or global warming or methamphetamine. Kenma didn’t spend every spare second with anyone else. But Kuroo. Kuroo. He couldn’t escape Kuroo. And that was the problem.
Kenma was always bumping into Kuroo as they walked into the clubroom before practice, and having to hear his excitement as he talked about new strategies or katsudon with Morisuke. Everything about Kuroo, Kenma was in love with, and he never got a break from any of it.
It was slowly but surely killing him.
And, actually, really, Kenma would have been fine walking home on his own, because it wasn’t his handheld that was distracting him. Practice had gone late, and they’d had to take the late train. By the time they were walking back to Kuroo’s house to study, the sun had started its steady descent. And Kuroo looked positively ethereal in the soft golden light. That, mixed with the fact that their arms kept bumping together as they walked, was doing things to Kenma. He was half convinced he would go into cardiac arrest, right there in front of the bakery Kuroo liked to get milk bread from after practice matches.
He was very much distracting Kenma, and so of course Kenma knocked his hip against the corner of an old bench he’d failed to notice was so close, and he went stumbling to the ground. His palms skidded against the concrete, and his knee slammed into the sidewalk. He didn’t bother looking to his PSP, which had landed a couple meters ahead.
Distantly, he registered Kuroo’s surprised shout, and soon after, he felt hands on his shoulders, pushing him into a sit.
“Are you okay?” Kuroo asked. He’d crouched in front of Kenma, and was going back and forth between inspecting Kenma’s hands and his face. “What’d you do, Kitten?”
All Kenma could manage was a dazed, “Um.” Did Kuroo know how he looked in this lighting?
Kuroo frowned and looked back to Kenma’s hands, which he held in his own. The heels were scraped, but they didn’t look so bad. A little bloody, sure, and there were tiny bits of gravel stuck to his skin, but really, they looked fine.
“I’m okay, Kuro, it’s nothing,” Kenma insisted. His face felt too warm.
Kuroo looked like he was about to give in and stand, but then his gaze fell on Kenma’s knee, and he stopped.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Oh.”
Now that he saw the gash across the side of his kneecap, he registered the dull pain. This was Kuroo’s fault. If he didn’t look so good in the glowing sunlight— If Kenma wasn’t so in love with him— If he didn’t make himself so easy to fall in love with—
“Can you stand?” The light was making his eyes shine gold, and oh, Kenma’s poor heart.
Kenma nodded, and let Kuroo pull him to his feet. His knee stung, but he figured it wasn’t that bad. It could have been worse, anyway.
“We’re almost home. We’ve got a first-aid kit,” Kuroo said, as if Kenma didn’t already know. He fetched the PSP and put it in his bag before Kenma could see the screen. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“It’s fine, Kuro.” Still, he leaned on Kuroo as they walked. It did hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable. Kenma looked up then to see a crooked smile tugging at Kuroo’s lips.
“What did I tell you? Always have to have someone there to make sure you don’t walk into a pole,” he teased.
Kenma snorted at the irony. It was having someone there that made him fall in the first place.
Without a game in his hands, Kenma was stuck watching Kuroo the last few blocks back, and that didn’t help any. Because Kuroo was watching him, and even though he still had that smile, he looked concerned. Kenma’s heart stuttered.
Kuroo waited until Kenma was seated at the edge of his bed before going in search of the first-aid kit. Kuroo’s room was just as familiar as Kenma’s own, with how often he was there. Posters with lame chemistry jokes were hung on the walls alongside posters printed with Kuroo’s favorite volleyball team. There were books and chocolate bars scattered across his desk, and there was a handful of framed photos of the two of them together scattered around. It was all neat and orderly, though that was largely due to Kenma’s refusal to come in if it was messy.
“Okay, so, you might have to help me out here, because you know how to do this better than I do,” Kuroo said as he came back in. Of course, this made sense. Kuroo could get clumsy, especially when he didn’t get enough sleep, and Kenma had spent plenty of afternoons patching him up.
“Yeah, okay,” said Kenma.
At least Kuroo had the basics down. He wiped Kenma’s hands with a damp cloth, then cleaned his knee, which looked much worse than it felt. Kuroo was incredibly gentle through it all, with feather-light touches and careful presses of the cloth to Kenma’s skin.
It was times like this that Kenma was reminded how soft Kuroo really was. He knew people liked to think otherwise. He’d heard people talking about Kuroo like he was a delinquent. There were rumors that he was some kind of sexual deviant, whispers going around about dark clubs and party drugs. There was always talk about what Kuroo Tetsurou must really be like. Sure, he was tall enough to sometimes be imposing, and he had that awful smirk plastered across his face more often than not, but really?
Kuroo was as soft as they came and Kenma knew it. He told awful science puns and he slept with a mountain of pillows every night. He always wore bright, patterned socks, and always made sure they matched, because he knew it bothered Kenma when they didn’t. He had the world’s most hideous donkey’s bray laugh and Kenma hated how much he loved even that. The first time (and only time, as far as Kenma knew) that Kuroo kissed someone, it was while he was on a date he’d only gone on because he thought it’d be rude to say no, and he’d called Kenma immediately after to tell him how awkward and uncomfortable it was.
Kuroo couldn’t possibly be any softer, and Kenma couldn’t possibly be more in love with him.
“Um, okay, then it’s the antibiotic ointment, right?” he asked as soon as the blood was all gone.
Kenma frowned. This was going to sting even worse. “Yes.”
His face screwed up in irritation as Kuroo wiped the ointment across his knee. He always poked fun at Kuroo when their positions were switched, but it was no longer all that amusing. Kenma knew why he always whined at this part.
“And then a band-aid,” Kuroo said. He grinned up at Kenma. “By a completely unexpected miracle, you should keep the leg.” Kenma breathed a laugh. “You’re good though? For real.”
“For real, Kuro, I’m good,” Kenma affirmed. He leaned back until his head hit the mattress, and looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you.”
“You know I’m always here for you. Besides, it’s only fair. You’re always doing this for me.”
“Because you have all the coordination off-court that Lev does on-court.”
“Rude!” Kuroo shoved at Kenma’s legs, but he was laughing. Kenma was pretty sure his heart had just given up on even trying to work at this point.
“You literally tripped and fell into a grocery cart last week,” Kenma pointed out. “You’re graceless.”
“All these years of friendship, and this is what I get?” Kuroo gasped. “Heartless, Kenma, absolutely heartless. I was going to kiss your wounds all better, but I’m to hurt to even think about it now.”
Kenma snorted, and replied without much thought, “Aw, do you want me to kiss it better?”
“Yes, please, kiss the wound you’ve inflicted on my heart all better,” Kuroo said. “It’s the only way to fix the damage you’ve done.” The mattress shifted as he crawled up to lay beside Kenma. “How could you?”
“You started it,” Kenma said. It was true, really. If Kuroo hadn’t been so . . . Kuroo, Kenma never would have fallen, in any sense of the word.
“How did I start it?” Kuroo insisted. “I’ve done nothing to you.”
Kenma turned his head, response half-formed on his lips, but he froze once he realized how close Kuroo was. He immediately looked away, instead focusing on the backpack Kuroo had discarded in the middle of the floor. He needed a distraction, or he really would go into cardiac arrest.
“Did the screen crack?” he blurted. “My PSP?”
There was a pause, and it took everything he had not to turn back to Kuroo.
“It’s fine.” The bed shifted again as Kuroo got up, and Kenma could see from the corner of his vision as he went to grab the handheld. He returned quickly after, laying even closer, his arm pressed against Kenma’s from shoulder to wrist. One small move, and they’d be holding hands.
Kenma took his PSP instead.
Kuroo, as always, watched Kenma’s screen as he played, homework forgotten. It was a level he’d played countless times through of a game he’d played countless times more. He probably could have run it on muscle memory alone, but Kuroo’s breath was hot on his neck, and their knees were tucked together, and it was so distracting, and Kenma’s character kept dying.
After he’d run off the same cliff for the third time in a row, Kuroo took the handheld and set it to the side. He at least had the good grace to pause the game.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Kenma sucked in a breath and turned his gaze to Kuroo. Too close.
“Um.”
“You know you can tell me anything, right, Kenma?”
Too close.
“I . . .”
When was the last time he’d felt so uncomfortable with Kuroo? He always knew what to say to him, but now, he was at a loss. His palms ached.
Kuroo sat up with a jolt and turned so his whole body was facing Kenma. “Did I do something?”
Kenma pushed up, shaking his head. But, well, it was all because of Kuroo, wasn’t it?
“I just— I—“ He couldn’t lie. Kuroo would catch a lie. But he also couldn’t just say I’m so in love with you and sometimes your back muscles really stress me out. That wouldn’t go over.
Kenma dropped his gaze to his hands, which fidgeted in his lap. He could still feel Kuroo’s eyes pinned on him.
“Hey. It’s okay.” He put a careful hand on Kenma’s shoulder, and Kenma looked back up. Again, he was reminded of how soft Kuroo was. “You don’t have to say anything you aren’t ready for. In your own time, you know? I don’t mean to push you, I’m sorry.”
That was the breaking point. Kenma couldn’t bear it anymore.
“I like you.” He was pretty sure his lungs had stopped functioning.
“Oh. Oh.” Kuroo started laughing then, falling back against the pillows.
Kenma’s chest felt tight. This was why he hadn’t wanted to tell Kuroo. It was this exact reaction he was so afraid of. Because here Kuroo was, laughing at him, at his feelings, and his lungs—
“Kenma. Kenma.” Kuroo choked out another laugh as he tried to lean back up. “I— Oh, please don’t make that face, that’s not—“ He took a breath and pushed back on the laughter, and stopped with his face too close to Kenma’s. “I’m not laughing at you. I— Kitten. I like you. I’m, like, pretty much in love with you.” Kenma’s eyes snapped back up to Kuroo. “I thought— I thought you knew. I mean, Yaku always says it’s obvious, and you’re so observant—“
“Kuro.”
“Even Lev knows, but maybe it’s just because Yaku told him. But if Lev knows, I figured surely you would—“
“Kuro.”
“Kitten.” Kuroo’s eyes locked onto Kenma’s, and he grinned. “I’m sorry. I like you a lot. I never thought you’d feel the same.”
Kenma rolled his eyes, but he offered a small smile. “You’re stupid.” He didn’t give Kuroo a chance to respond before he leaned forward to close the small gap still between them.
His lips were chapped and their noses bumped together, and it was slightly awkward and really, neither of them knew what they were doing, but that didn’t make it any less refreshing. All the weight felt like it was lifted off Kenma’s shoulders.
Kenma was the first to pull back, and he let his forehead rest against Kuroo’s. “You know it’s your fault I fell, right? Your, you know. Your face.” His face felt too warm. “It looked really nice.”
That, evidently, was the wrong thing to say, because it brought on Kuroo’s awful, awful laugh, and sent him falling back against the pillows once again, clutching his stomach.
“I’m leaving,” Kenma muttered, even though he made no move to get up.
“No!” Kuroo cried, still unable to stop laughing. He lunged forward to tackle Kenma onto the mattress and buried his face in Kenma’s neck. “I’m sorry, you’re too cute. I’m sorry.” He lifted his head to hover against Kenma and grinned. “But you started it.”
“You did.”
“Did not.”
“Did so.”
“Did not."
“Did so.”