kozume kenma – Moami

Looking at the issue from all sides, Kuroo is about five percent disappointed in himself. If one examines the whole situation, that is far more than expected. The rest of his brain capacity is taken up by overheated whirring and wildly spinning coils at the moment, so he refuses to be blamed for his lack of investment in scolding himself.

“Kuro,” Kenma says. He’s still sitting there on Kuroo’s bed, one hand in his hair to push it up the side of his head, thumb gently nudging his earlobe forward.

Kuroo swallows.

“Are you deaf?”

He’s not, but it’s damn near close. Stupid heartbeat so loud in his ears. “No. I, uhm. It’s.” Be cool, fuck, remember how to do that still? “When did you get it?”

“Yesterday. It barely hurt.” Kenma doesn’t even flinch when Kuroo reaches to touch, but his lip twitches a bit. “Careful though.”

“‘Course.” So this is his life now, Kuroo thinks while he runs his fingertip over the silver stud resting in the flesh of Kenma’s ear. “Other side too?”

“Would look stupid otherwise.” A yawn. Kenma rubs a hand over his eyes, then winds away from Kuroo’s touch and drapes himself over his lap. The familiar shiver of warmth down his spine is one of the few things Kuroo knows better than his own face. Together with Kenma’s, his hands, the feeling of ground below his feet and, well, okay, that mouth against his own.

He waits (patient, of course, always for him) until Kenma has arranged himself. His strategy seems to be going for cuddling tonight, Kuroo deduces from the rough nudge against his fingers, Kenma’s forehead prodding until Kuroo threads a hand into the peach soft hair of his neck.

“Why now?” They only have a few nights. Then, it’s university for him again, and that last year for Kenma.

“Dunno,” Kenma mumbles into his leg.

“Liar.”

“Mhm.”

“Tell me. Please?” They all think that Kenma’s the one to get what he wants, no matter how ridiculous. It’s like that most of the time, but oh, not always. Kuroo leans down, kisses the hair that smells dark-sweet of sweat, this afternoon’s pie, grass and lemonade from earlier, their sheets and skin rubbing on another until it’s pink.

Kenma is quiet for a while. His fingers play with the hem of Kuroo’s pajama, tickles along the hair on his knee. The moon’s all the light for them.

A breath exhales against his leg. “I can’t get real piercings yet. I have to wait until school is over and I’m at university. It’s all I have until then. Not enough, but… but I’ll take it. I can wait.” He looks up at Kuroo, pale in the night with old kisses glinting dark over his neck and red on his mouth, a curved smile. “Can you?”

Kuroo wants to love him until they wither away.

“Yeah. ‘course.”

Kenma’s eyes are gone. Dark, hollow caves swallow the light where they used to be. His contours are shifting, bones cracking in his body. Kuroo can’t run. His leg is broken where Kenma’s claws have rammed into it, and the pain is so intense that his mouth tastes white and searing and his vision is smoky.

“Three questions,” Kenma sing-songs. His mouth is tiny and red. He’s licked some of Kuroo’s blood from his claws. The gym is empty. Kuroo is against a wall, crying, silent and pathetic because he can’t wrap his mind around this.

“Wh…” Blood is in his mouth. Kuroo chokes, whimpers. “Why?”

Kenma takes a step. “A person has to eat.”

“You’re not a person.”

Kenma smiles, soft, almost fond. “I was, for you, for the years I was weak and grew in this body. But no, I’m not. I’ll count that as a question, so you have one more left.”

The gym is quiet. Nobody knows he’s here. He wants to know many things. Kenma takes a step. His naked toes touch Kuroo’s, trace his sneakers.

He can’t close his eyes, not even when Kenma’s jaw makes a terrible crack, when it unhinges and reveals a maw that’s so red and wet it’s almost pretty.

Kuroo lets his head fall against the wall. The thump is a dull echo in his skull.

“Was Kenma ever in there, or was it only just you?”

The hollow caves of Kenma’s, no, the thing’s eyes seem to grow. Black envisions Kuroo. Something wet touches his skin, and he feels numbness spread throughout his – oh. Poison. He can’t feel anymore, then.

A whisper reaches his ears.

“Help me.”

A slow grin spreads on Kuroo’s lips. “Hey there, kitten.” He rips his eyes open, fingers shooting forward, and before the thing can so much as snarl, Kuroo’s hands go up in flames, shoving down its throat with a burst of sparks.

The thing roars. Black goo spurts from its tongue, spills over Kuroo’s arms, but he just grins, grins, fingers twisting and the tips pressing deep into the thing’s esophagus.

“You know,” Kuroo says, tilting his head as his fire takes the monster apart, its agonizing screams almost drowning out Kuroo’s voice, “that’s the thing with you monsters. First off, you think you know humans, but you don’t. We lie, and some of us are pretty good actors. We also know when someone’s lying, just like you did before about all those years. Bullshit. And second, we really don’t appreciate it when you engulf the gorgeous boys that we’re bonded to into your disgusting bodies, and especially not when it’s on their anniversary. So.” He takes a deep breath, plants both feet on the ground, and his smile vanishes.

“Either you give me back my boyfriend, or I fry you from the inside like a goddamn chicken nugget. Or – oh well. Too late. Guess my magic reached him.”

Kuroo takes a step back and pulls his hands out of the thing’s throat. It’s a trembling lump of black goo now, all the outer shell of Kenma’s imitation melted away. The gym is silent for a few seconds. Then, an angry hum fills the air.

“Too bad. You could have had this quick, mostly pain-free, but you pissed him off.” Kuroo sits down, crosses his legs, waiting with a smile. The thing makes a hurt noise somewhere in its body, and then the entire gym begins to shake.

“’s not really a good idea to mess with a mage and their dragon.”

“We don’t have a lot of – oh fuck.” There’s a vulnerable grace in the curve of Kuroo’s throat, so Kenma puts his mouth against it and brings a kiss down. It’s narrow in the equipment room of the club, but it’ll do, it has to. A nest of their training jackets and Kuroo’s shirt keeps the ground’s cold off their knees and allows Kenma to sit between Kuroo’s legs, grants him the privilege to run his curious fingers over trembling skin.

“We,” Kuroo starts again, the words sounding heavy in his mouth. It’s all red and swollen, Kenma thinks when he looks up at him, letting go of his throat for barely a second. “Not much time. I know. How much?” Not that he really cares for a reply. Kuroo’s the responsible one here, his eyes are the gold that focuses on the clock hanging across the room while Kenma loses himself in touches, whispers, his own nails raking flickers of white down Kuroo’s darker skin.

“Five. Not more, and if the others – God. You’re gorgeous.”

Kenma lets a soft, tiny noise escape his lips when Kuroo touches his chin. His eyes flutter shut, hand pressed to Kuroo’s warm stomach, the other drawing circles by the ivory of his hipbones. “Kiss,” Kenma demands, quiet as always.

Kuroo gives. He gives in and gives away, granting Kenma whatever wish he has, be it the fact that he accepted Kenma’s awkward confessions months ago or that he kissed him on the last day of training camp, where they had sneaked onto the roof and held hands under too many stars above their heads.

Then he’s back in reality. Kuroo has an arm around his back, hand smoothing against Kenma’s ribcage with a reverence that has been stealing his breath since they were twelve and Kuroo had hugged him as Kenma’s first friend ever. Now, their skin melts together in a harsh twitch of bodies. Kenma curls one of his leg around Kuroo’s waist, and he moans in a broken shadow of his own voice when a soft tongue pushes between his lips, bringing heat and slick pressure to his mouth. Kuroo shifts when Kenma kisses him back, and a noise seeps into the air trembling between their lips. Oh, Kenma thinks, spreading his legs over Kuroo’s lap, he’s hard.

“Kitten.” Kuroo says it like a prayer, when Kenma’s hand finds a way down, and his eyes are liquid gold, home, a ray of yes I want you I have chosen you and we’re each other’s. “You don’t have to – “

“You never make me do anything.” Kenma kisses him, tugs at Kuroo’s lips with careful teeth, until they’re so out of breath that the entire room seems to fill with nothing but them. “I want to. I really, really want to. If you don’t, I won’t, but – can I, could I.”

Kuroo doesn’t let the insecurity spread. His hands are on Kenma’s cheeks, thumbs tracing his breathless mouth. A brush of lips sears against his forehead. “Okay,” Kuroo rasps, “okay. I want you to. Kenma, Kenma.”

They’re late for training. Kenma’s hand is warm, his mouth and cheeks feel like they’re woven from fire, and his skin smells like Kuroo had poured his entire being all over Kenma (when really, he’d gotten his release with a dark noise in Kenma’s hand, lashes black and mouth a cherry-fever that Kenma would never forget). “I want to do that to you, too,” Kuroo had said after they got dressed.
Kenma had smiled.

The music’s rhythm pulses through his veins like a breath of aconite. He wants to go home. He wants to go home. He wants –

Kuroo is in the crowd. He’s carrying drinks, one for himself, something else for Kenma, and everyone moves along him like a court bowing for their king. Majesty, come through, let the music roar to your glory. He doesn’t even know it, Kenma thinks and bites at his own lip until it tastes bad and red. They adore him. Everyone does, he’s too nice, kind underneath all that snark and grinning, with hands that frame Kenma’s face like a masterpiece when Kuroo kisses him.

A girl. She smiles, oh she’s beautiful, Kenma looks down on the floor. His jeans are torn, shoes dirty. Why Kuroo took him here, he doesn’t know, something about having fun, about Kenma liking to dance with him? He does. It’s true.

The girl’s fingers touch Kuroo’s arm. Her nails are half-moons, rose-thorns, and Kuroo looks at her with a flip of his head.

Please, Kenma thinks. His fingers dig into the fabric of his jeans. He’s still out of breath from dancing, remembers Kuroo’s hands by his hips, their bodies together. It had been like living through a starburst, moving along with Kuroo, knowing everyone envied Kenma, looking at them.

But please, don’t, Kenma begs across the room with wordless eyes, don’t take him. Don’t touch him. Don’t take him away, even if you could. Let him be.

Kuroo shakes his head.

A shudder rakes down Kenma’s spine. He stands, bottom lip between teeth, staring at Kuroo as he comes over. One day, he’s going to lose him, to someone with grace and feather-light laughter and without cracked ugliness scattered across their past.

“Let’s go home.” Kuroo pushes the drink into his hand, lips tracing a kiss along Kenma’s temple. “You’re zoning out. Take my hand?”

“Okay.”

When they’re outside, drinks finished and jackets around their shoulders, Kenma pulls him down. He kisses Kuroo until their lungs ache, until Kuroo’s fingers burn in his neck and at his hip, until Kenma feels like they melt together again.

Kuroo kisses him, his nose, lips, the bow over his mouth that’s named after love’s god, until Kenma allows himself to cry. It’s silent between them. There are no words on the way home. Kenma’s hand is in Kuroo’s. He thinks back to the girl, but then they’re through the door and Kuroo nuzzles his hair once more before starting to talk about hot cocoa, about going to bed afterwards.

Kenma leans against the wall of the corridor and closes his eyes.

The girl’s face is in his mind, soft, overwhelmingly unbroken.

Not today, he thinks. And if I can do anything, everything, never.

Then Kuroo calls his name. “I’m here,” Kenma says, and moments later, Kuroo’s by his side again, pushing a mug into his hand, finding him in the corridor without turning on the light. “Let’s sleep in a few, yeah?”

Kenma smiles around the edge of the mug. The cocoa is sweet. Outside the window, the sun rises. “Yeah.”

Kenma recharges in a very special and, admittedly, kind of strange way.

And Kuroo doesn’t know when it began – sometime when they were smaller and the world was loud, scary, colourful – but it’s a ritual now, one that won’t break.

The team understands. They watch with a mix of amusement and fondness, because as soon as their coach calls for a break, Kenma reaches for Kuroo’s wrist. His fingers wrap around it, tugging once, twice. “I’m tired, Kuro.”

Kuroo talks to their other teammates while he sits on the bench. Nobody even looks twice when Kenma climbs onto his lap, legs sliding around his waist. They don’t question why Kenma nuzzles Kuroo’s neck, lips a soft pressure against his skin, dark lashes fluttering above his cheeks like feathers. There were never any questions asked about what relationship is going on there, exactly, it only mattered that Kenma could play and felt good and that Kuroo was grinning.

And because nobody really pays attention to it anymore, because it became so normal in its uniqueness, nobody is surprised that Kenma always enters the court with a tiny smile after their coach calls them back into training.

“Kenma!” The door of his room flies open with a loud bang and Kenma flinches. Such enthusiasm in Kuroo’s actions is always a sign for trouble. It means that Kuroo either has an idea (oh no), that Bokuto has come over and they’re bored (oh noo) or that he wants to drag Kenma away from his new game and into socialising, “because you always hole yourself up and you need to go out and have some food with me and my bro and Akaashi” (oh please no).

But today, Kuroo is carrying something. Kenma sees the object hover in the periphery of his vision, and he glances up from his game after pressing pause.

“What’s that?” It looks like-

“Happy Pi Day,” Kuroo says. His grin is bright and warm, and it’s the way his eyes are soft around the corners that tells Kenma: No going out. No socialising. Just the two of them, at home, because the tenderness in Kuroo’s voice when he says “scoot over” to sit down is sweet like honey. Kenma puts his game away, not even fighting the smile that curves his own mouth.

“You remembered?” And not only that.

In Kuroo’s hands sits a horribly disfigured pie. “Of course. How could I forget my boyfriend’s favourite holiday?” Kuroo clears his throat and places the pie in Kenma’s hands, pointing at the wonky letters that seem to be made out of icing. “For you.”

Kenma blinks. He reads the letters once, twice. And then he starts laughing so hard that the pie almost falls off his lap. Kuroo has to save it with one hand, the other wrapping around Kenma’s waist, his cheeks burning red. “I tried my best-”

“Yes, you did,” Kenma wheezes, still laughing, and pulls Kuroo into a kiss.

Later, when Kenma can finally breathe again, he carefully cuts himself a large chunk of the pie. Without ruining the letters, of course.

It’s not every day that you get a present that says “You’re the apple-pi of my eye.”

It was supposed to be a joke. Kenma hides behind the door of Kuroo’s room while he’s downstairs to get them some tea. Nobody else is home. This is a good prank, Kenma thinks, I’m going to scare him a bit and maybe he’s going to tickle me then. Maybe we’ll end up cuddling (that would be really, really nice).

It is supposed to be a joke. Kenma jumps out from behind the door and rips his hands into the air when Kuroo comes in. He wants to yell something, a funny quote from a movie, but his body freezes when-

It was supposed to be a joke. But then Kuroo’s on the floor, the tray is dropped, and Kenma watches how his best friend shrinks into a tiny ball and covers his head with both hands.

“Don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry.”

“Kuroo.” Kenma’s voice breaks. He drops to the floor, reaches out, halts. “I didn’t know that you – I’m so sorry. Kuroo, l-look at me. I won’t hurt you.”

It takes a moment until Kuroo lifts his head. The tracks of tears on his cheeks feel like a knife through Kenma’s chest. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, looking at Kuroo, not moving an inch.

It was supposed to be a joke. But five minutes later, Kuroo sits on the bed, the spilled tea is wiped away, and Kenma listens to the story of what Kuroo has been living through during middle school whenever Kenma wasn’t with him. And oh, Kenma didn’t know that he could hate other people so much, but he does when Kuroo tentatively talks about fists that make bruises bloom and how being gay has only started to feel right when high school came around and Kenma’s fingers laced up with Kuroo’s in front of the team for the first time without any pain raining down on him.

Some nights, Kenma can’t stop the stinging and crawling of his skin with cold showers. He dries himself off and migrates over into Kuroo’s room, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and hips, hair tied into a ponytail. He only ties it back for Kuroo. There’s nothing to hide when they’re alone.

Kuroo doesn’t look up. He’s sitting before his easel, rough fingers guiding the brush in delicate strokes. Kenma licks his lips. He manages to speak, but it’s hard and awkward. “I,” he says, slow, and remembers that Kuroo will love him whatever weakness he admits, whether his recovery is sluggish or smooth. “I don’t feel… good.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Kuroo puts the paintbrush away and turns. He opens his arms. “Come here?” Kenma has waited for that. He moves, catapults himself into Kuroo’s hug. It’s hard to keep his fingers away from his back, his face-

“May I try something?”

“Uhm.” Kenma frowns. Kuroo has spoken gently into his chest, where he’s buried his lips and kisses his skin. “Okay?”

“Trust me.” And Kenma does. He follows Kuroo’s plea to lie down on the bed, after Kuroo’s spread an old white bedsheet over it. Kenma rests his head on his hands and listens to the noises Kuroo makes, shuffling closer, uncapping a tub of paint, or is it something else?

A paintbrush touches his back. Something cold melt against his skin. Kenma’s lips curl into a smile. “That’s a good idea. Can you turn on music?”

Kuroo can, and he does. Kenma doesn’t know for how long Kuroo paints on him. His skin tingles with sensation, bursting into sparks of joy and yes, good, that’s better than the crawling stings from earlier. It’s almost natural to fall asleep. It’s dark outside when Kenma drifts back to consciousness. Kuroo’s rummaging in the kitchen; a cup of steaming tea is on the nightstand, together with Kuroo’s phone. The display is lit up, showing a photo.

Kuroo has taken a snap of his back. He’s painted two wings on Kenma’s back that melt together into the shape of a door. The lock is twisted out of a cat’s mouth, green eyes shining with cunning. On the back of his hand, Kenma then discovers the shape of a small, golden key. He smiles.

His skin doesn’t itch anymore.

Kuroo asks him when they’re ten and eleven years old, lying in the grass of the garden behind Kenma’s house. Their fingertips touch, and Kuroo whispers as if it’s a secret. “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?” He wants to say, so you can have a superpower or something, but Kenma already says, quiet: “Everything.”

Kuroo frowns. “That’s stupid. You can’t hate all of yourself.”

Kenma falls silent. His fingertips are cold and pale, like the small marbles Kuroo collects. He wants Kenma to stop making that sad, tiny face. “What do you like about yourself, then?”

“Nothing.” There’s something wet, glinting on Kenma’s cheek.

That’s the moment where Kuroo takes Kenma’s hand for the first time. “Come on,” he says, and then again, louder, “let’s go play! I’ll show you something cool about yourself!”

After a moment, Kenma follows him. He wipes his tears with his shirt and nods.

Twelve years later, Kuroo takes his hand again and kisses the knuckles. “What are you thinking about?” His arm rests on Kenma’s shoulders, lap full of two sleeping cats, and Kenma leans into his side, lips still red, warm, mouth a smile.

“Nothing,” he says, soft, before stealing another kiss from his boyfriend. “I just thought of another thing for my list.”

“Will you tell me?” A rough thumb caresses Kenma’s knuckles, one by one, careful and so familiar. Kenma nods. “Sure. Thing number two hundred and fifty seven that I like about myself – that I’m here right now.”

The hug that Kuroo gives him knocks all air out of Kenma’s lungs, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. This time, it’s Kuroo who’s crying.

“Sorry I’m late!” Kuroo bursts through the door of the flat, a plastic bag full of groceries in each of his hands. Snow is hissing behind him, a storm of white flakes trying to claw its way into the warm house. Kuroo manages to slam the door shut with his foot before dragging the groceries into the kitchen. “Kenma?” He calls out while searching the bags, only putting away what belongs in the fridge and then wandering through the flat with a packet of sandwiches. “Ken-”

The door to Kenma’s room is open. Kuroo moves closer, taking a peek inside, making sure that his steps are loud enough to not startle his boyfriend. “May I come inside or is it alone time?”

“You can come in,” Kenma replies from inside. A blanket rustles, and Kuroo recognises the noise of a gaming console being put onto the nightstand. “Welcome home. I missed you.” It’s only with those words that Kuroo pushes the door open and comes inside. Kenma is under the blanket, curled up, lips forced into a thin smile. A jolt of pain flies through Kuroo’s chest.

He’s by Kenma’s side and underneath the blanket within seconds. “What’s wrong? Talk to me. Are you havin’ a bad day?”

Kenma bites his lips and nods. Sometimes Kuroo hates being right, hates knowing the reason that tears well up in Kenma’s eyes. “How can you still l-love me when I’m,” Kenma begins. His voice is so tiny, wet, shivering, and Kuroo immediately acts. He carefully slides his hands below the blanket, tickles his fingertips along Kenma’s soft waist. “Mhm.” Kenma closes his eyes, hums, a hiccup following as he smiles through the tears. “Kuroo.”

“I couldn’t not love you,” Kuroo says. “I don’t care if you look different.” His fingertips are reverent when they paint invisible patterns of gentleness onto Kenma’s lower belly that has gotten bigger and softer after he’s stopped playing volleyball in college. “I love you in any shape and age, I love you with wrinkles and grey hair and with blind eyes or a bigger stomach. I’d kiss you until we both couldn’t breathe anymore, no matter what. You’re always – just.”

“…I’m your K-Kenma?”

Kuroo nods. His neck is wet where Kenma has buried his face, and his chest hurts a bit because short nails dig into it through his Iron Man shirt. But it doesn’t matter. Kenma’s stomach is warm and beautiful below his touch, and the hiccups stop. “Okay?” No, it’s not. He knows. It returns, and it takes time to heal.

But Kenma looks up with eyes as golden as sunlight, kisses Kuroo’s mouth until both of their heads are dizzy, and then he lets his own fingers slide down to tickle the trail of hair on Kuroo’s stomach until both of them laugh, grin, smile.