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For all Kuroo brags and bluffs and blusters, Kenma’s learned in the few days he’s known the other boy that Kuroo’s a lot more of a scaredy-cat than he lets on.
Case in point: Kuroo has a frankly embarrassing fear of any legged, winged, or pointed insects. To be more clear, Kuroo has a paralyzing fear of all insects.
“They’re just so nasty,” Kenma remembers Kuroo telling him with a shiver. “All those legs—spiders, centipedes, whatever else—they’re all so gross.”
“Spiders aren’t an insect,” Kenma had told him.
Kuroo had squinted at him. “Same difference,” he’d dismissed a few moments later.
Now, though, as Kenma watches a spider slowly climb its way on top of Kuroo’s controller, he wonders absentmindedly if it would make a difference to Kuroo at all if he were to point it out as a spider (which it was) instead of as an insect (which it wasn’t).
“Kuroo,” Kenma says without taking his eyes off of the screen in front of them.
“Stop trying to distract me,” Kuroo mutters, and when Kenma glances over at the other boy, he’s got the tip of his tongue stuck out of his mouth in concentration, even as he leans forward to the screen as if that would help him close the 200-meter distance between his game character and Kenma’s. As his grip on his own controller tightens, the spider lazily begins to wander onto Kuroo’s hand.
“You’ve got a spider on your hand.”
“HA,” Kuroo crows loudly. “Nice try. I’m not that gullible—” His voice cuts off into a high shriek when his eyes land on the offending creature on his hand. “KENMA,” he screeches. “GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF—”
“Stay still—” Kenma tries to say, reaching for Kuroo even as he flails his hand desperately in the air. It takes both of Kenma’s hands on Kuroo’s one to get him to freeze, even as shudders continue to rack the rest of his body. Kenma snatches a nearby paper tissue, plucking the spider off of Kuroo’s hand and letting it crawl outside through the side door of his room.
“Thank god,” Kuroo says with a sigh of relief. “I love you, Kenma.”
Kenma blinks slowly.
Kuroo, though, has already gone back to inspecting his hand, bringing it closer to his face even as he uses his other hand to push it away. “Do you think it gave me rabies?”
Well. Maybe Kenma just misheard.
“YESSSS,” cheers Kuroo one afternoon, half a piece of toast dangling from his open mouth. “I WON, FINALLY—”
“Don’t talk with your mouth open,” Kenma mutters, and although he would never admit it to anyone, he is a bit sullen about the loss—despite knowing that his win record is over 50 to, well, one.
Kuroo swallows emphatically only to stick his tongue out at Kenma a moment later. “You sound like my mom,” he shoots back snottily.
Kenma resists the urge to roll his eyes and instead opens his mouth to refute, only to snap it closed when Kuroo’s phone begins ringing. Kuroo fumbles with the flip phone for a few moments before pulling it open, putting it by his ear only for a few moments before his eyes widen and he snaps it closed once again.
“I totally forgot about practice today,” Kuroo explains, even as he quickly shrugs on his coat and heads for the door to Kenma’s room, his controller lying forgotten at his feet. Kenma almost frowns. It wasn’t the first time he’d dipped from the Kozume residence for his middle school volleyball practice, and based on his enthusiasm for the sport, Kenma was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last.
“Bye, then,” he says as mildly as he can.
“Bye, Kenma,” Kuroo returns. “See you later, love you!”
The door shuts.
Maybe Kenma should get his ears checked.
Volleyball really is such a pain. Two years into being Nekoma’s setter and that much hasn’t changed for Kenma, no matter how much Kuroo might wish otherwise—
—that being said, there is something about the wide grin Kuroo sends him after a perfect set that twinges against Kenma’s chest. He’s still not sure if he’s annoyed by the sensation or not. Either way, he chooses not to dwell on it too much, but one day, during a practice against Aoba Johsai, when a successful setter dump wins them the set, Kuroo’s loud holler is enough for even the setter of the other team to shoot them a dirty look.
“That’s our setter,” Kuroo cheers, slapping a hand on Kenma’s back with enough force to send Kenma stumbling a bit forward. “Love you, Kenma, your sets are fucking amazing.”
Kenma stills.
Kuroo, of course, has easily moved on to ducking underneath the net to shake hands with the other team’s captain, and although the setter’s smile looks a little obviously strained, Kenma’s a little more preoccupied with—
“Did you hear that?” he hears Lev whisper conspicuously. “Yaku-san, did you hear that?”
“...yeah, I did.”
Maybe all of Nekoma should get their ears checked.
As one would expect of a person with his temperament, Kuroo is a horrible, terrible drunk.
“Kenmaaaaa,” he slurs when Kenma opens his door to find Kuroo leaning against the doorframe, his hair messier than usual, with strands sticking out in all different directions to add to his overall already disheveled appearance. “I don’t feel so good—”
Kenma tugs him inside the room before Kuroo can throw up in the hallway.
Kuroo, fortunately or unfortunately, does not throw up, and instead flops face first on Kenma’s bed. Kenma wriggles out the PSP underneath Kuroo’s half-comatose body before sitting on the side of the bed Kuroo isn’t taking up and booting up his game. If he’s lucky, Kuroo will have already passed out only to moan and groan in the morning about his killer hangover. If he’s unlucky—
“Can you believe I’m graduating,” Kuroo mumbles out. “Can you believe it?”
Because when Kenma says Kuroo’s a horrible drunk, it means he’s a talkative drunk.
“Graduating,” Kuroo repeats dreamily, and although Kenma can’t see his face on account of it being pressed against Kenma’s pillows, he can very well imagine the dopey look on his face as he speaks. “Graaaduating.”
“Yes, Kuroo,” Kenma says during the pregnant pause that follows. “I know.”
“In less than a month,” Kuroo adds.
“I know.”
“Done with high school.”
“I know.”
“D’you think I can play volleyball in college?”
“Yes, Kuroo.”
“D’you think there’ll be people to play volleyball with in college?”
“Yes, Kuroo.”
“Bet they won’t be as good as you,” Kuroo mumbles sleepily. After a pause, he asks, “Hey, Kenma?”
“Mm,” Kenma hums noncommittally.
“I love you.”
Kenma stares at the loading screen of his PSP. The dim light is the only source of light at all in the room, and Kenma has no idea what expression of his it could be illuminating. The silence that follows Kuroo’s blurted confession—because that’s what it is, that’s what it’s been this whole time, isn’t it—is deafening, and Kenma breaks it with a soft exhale.
“...Kuroo?”
The silence begins to stretch thin. Kenma frowns.
“Kuroo?”
But when he finally dares to glance over, Kuroo is utterly and fast asleep.
“Kenma.” A poke. “Hey, Kenma.” Another poke. “Kenma—”
“What,” Kenma snaps, frowning at his screen when his game character dies with the tinny noise of a descending trombone.
“Since I’m, you know, graduating so soon,” Kuroo starts, and his tone is grave enough for Kenma to actually tear his eyes away from the flashing GAME OVER on his screen, where he finds Kuroo staring intently at his hands, “I didn’t want to leave before telling you—” He looks away, swallows, looks at his hands again. “I love you, Kenma.”
Kenma blinks slowly.
“No, you don’t,” he says.
Kuroo blinks rapidly. “Wh—yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” Kenma repeats.
“Yes, I do,” Kuroo insists.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do!”
“You don’t.”
“Kenma, what—” Kuroo cuts himself off with a frustrated huff. “If you’re going to reject me, just tell it to me straight. What, you won’t even hear it?”
“I won’t hear it,” Kenma says adamantly, and his fingers on his console tighten. “Because you don’t mean it.”
Kuroo’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “Yes, I do!”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I—I’m not having this conversation.”
“Good,” Kenma mutters. “Neither am I.”
And before he can think, before Kuroo can try to fool him with meaningless words again, Kenma grabs his bag and heads for home.
Kenma thinks that might be the end of it—thinks that must be the end of it, which is why it surprises him when Kuroo remains largely melancholy through the rest of the week. Which is why it surprises him when Kuroo begins taking longer than usual to respond to texts, which is why it surprises him when Kuroo makes himself scarce at school and even at his own house when Kenma dares to visit.
“Kuroo isn’t home right now,” his mother tells Kenma apologetically one such day, even as Kenma sees the blinds to Kuroo’s room quickly snap shut out of the corner of his eye.
Kuroo’s sudden aversion to Kenma shouldn’t bother him. It doesn’t bother him, if anyone asks, but apparently it bothers the people utterly and completely unrelated to the entire incident.
“Kenma-san,” Lev asks earnestly one day after ambushing Kenma in the hallway. Yaku’s next to him, pretending to look disinterested in the whole affair, but the furtive glances he keeps shooting at Kenma fools absolutely no one, certainly not Kenma himself. “Is Kuroo-san avoiding you?”
“Does it matter?” Kenma asks.
“Yes, it matters,” Yaku interrupts before Lev can speak. “I am sick and tired of Kuroo calling me every night to whine about his own pining ass—” He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “If you want to reject him, that’s fine. Just do it quickly, please, for my own sanity.”
Kenma’s not actually sure what this conversation’s about, but at Lev’s wide eyes and Yaku’s almost pleading expression, Kenma can’t do anything but nod.
So that afternoon, when Kenma decides to try again and taps at the door to Kuroo’s house only for it to swing open at his touch, he thinks it must be providence. He’s quiet as he makes his way up the stairs, almost abnormally so, but he can’t help himself, not when he’s still figuring out what he’s doing at Kuroo’s house at all in the first place. When he finally reaches Kuroo’s door, he hesitates before rapping his knuckles against the surface.
“I’m busy, mom,” comes Kuroo’s voice from inside.
“Not your mom,” Kenma mutters under his breath, but it’s apparently loud enough for Kuroo to swing the door open, staring at Kenma with wide eyes.
“Kenma?” Kuroo asks, his eyes darting over Kenma’s face as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing. “What are you doing here—?”
“Can I come in,” Kenma asks, even as he pushes past Kuroo to enter the room. Kuroo’s too shell-shocked to stop him, and Kenma takes his inaction as an invitation to sit on the edge of Kuroo’s bed.
“What—” Kuroo begins to ask again, but Kenma cuts him off.
“Kuroo.”
“...yeah?”
“Do you love me—”
“I do, that’s what I’ve been saying this whole ti—”
“—or are you in love with me?”
Kuroo stills. His mouth opens, then closes. His brows furrow.
“Is there a difference?” he asks hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Kenma murmurs. “There is.” At the extended silence that follows, Kenma exhales slowly. “Kuroo, you’ve told me that you ‘love me’ at least four times before,” he explains with finger quotes.
“I have?” Kuroo asks, something strange and strangled in his tone.
“You have,” Kenma confirms with a short nod. “How can you expect me to take you seriously now?”
“Then—” Kuroo blurts out. “Then I’m in love with you.” Kenma’s eyes widen, but Kuroo’s not finished. “I’m in love with you, I have been in love with you for…” He trails off. “A really fucking long time,” he eventually finishes. “Do you… believe me?”
Kind of hard not to, Kenma thinks absently, staring at his hands in Kuroo’s.
“Hm,” he says instead. “Me too, I guess.”
Kuroo’s eyebrow twitches. “You guess?”
Kenma shrugs. “What, you want me to say it?”
“Well,” Kuroo says, a grin widening over his face. “Since I’ve apparently said it soooo many times, surely you can bring yourself to say it even once?”
“FineIloveyou,” Kenma rushes out in one breath.
Kuroo’s shit-eating grin widens. “Sorry, what was that? Could you say it again?”
Maybe, Kenma thinks when he moves to slap a pillow against Kuroo’s messy hair, it’s been Kuroo’s ears that need checking this whole time.