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Tetsurou’s shoulders are tight when he steps into his bedroom, dropping his bag onto the floor and pulling off his jacket. He doesn’t flick on the light, though outside the daylight is dying. The sun has sunk beneath the horizon, which he knows by the color of the sky and not by the view from his window; he has a view of a car park and dumpsters and the wall of another apartment building, no horizon in sight.
The jacket follows the bag onto the floor, and the clunking noise it makes tells him his phone is still in the pocket. He’s still holding the jacket sleeve; he drags it along to the bed so he won’t have to get up and grab his phone later.
He lies down.
For a long time that’s all he’s doing: laying down. His head buzzes with thoughts, but they’re distant things, and every moment he can tune them out is good. The room gets darker. He doesn’t get up.
Eventually—a long, long time later—he manages to reel in his jacket to get to his phone. He unlocks it and is momentarily blinded by the bright screen. He pillows his head on his arm and reads three new messages from Kenma, all sent about five hours ago.
Message one: how can a trouser pocket be empty but still have something in it?
Message two: it can have a hole in it
Message three: (I lost my house keys, but dad is coming home early to let me in)
Tetsurou huffs a laugh. He imagines Kenma outside his house wiggling a finger through a newly-discovered pocket hole. He imagines the consternation on Kenma’s face—the reluctance to have to deal with this—coupled with the confidence that if he just waits long enough someone will come home and let him in. He imagines the spot in the garden where Kenma would sit and wait. He’d have homework with him—he’d be returning from classes—but he’d pull out his PSP instead.
Suddenly Tetsurou’s eyes are prickling. No. Ugh. No. This isn’t what he needs. Thinking of Kenma is nice. Not sad. Not—
I wish you were here, he types into the reply box, running from his thoughts again. This time they’re not a distant buzz; they chase after him. He presses send before they can catch up. Now he can feel embarrassed at sending such a useless, needy text, instead of feeling homesick and lonely.
He does feel embarrassed, a little, but not nearly as acutely as he should. He’s sunk too far into self-pity. Embarrassment won’t save him from the fact that his team’s only decent libero is on probation and the coach keeps not responding to emails and his class load is worse than ever before. It won’t make him forget that he’s here at this school because of the volleyball team and that that same volleyball team is beginning to lose all momentum.
He knows how momentum works. Once it’s gone, it’s ten times harder to get it back, and he can feel it draining from his team during every practice session.
Before he’s quite decided to, his phone is unlocked in his hand again and he’s opening the messaging app. This time he finds Bokuto in his contacts; their last conversation was about instant noodle brands.
Tell me all the things you like about Akaashi, Tetsurou sends without preamble. This is Bokuto; he’ll understand.
He doesn’t have to wait for long.
Again? Bokuto writes back, accompanied by a sad emoji. You okay?
Tired, Tetsurou writes back, which is true. He’s hungry, too; the noodle thing reminded him.
He remains facedown on the mattress, though, half looking at his phone and waiting. Bokuto extols on Akaashi’s virtues for a while, seeming to get more excited as he types them up, but he turns the conversation before Tetsurou’s mind is truly settled.
And here are the things I like about you, Bokuto types. One: your hair is great. Almost as good as my hair. (thumbs up) Two: you work really hard!! Three: everything about you. but I don’t like that you’re sad or that you’re so far away! (sad face)
Tetsurou presses his eyes shut. Going to this university was an awful idea. He’s lonely. He went here because the team wanted him, would pay for him, and now he feels like everyone who wants him is hours away. It’s easy to be the reliable captain when everyone likes you and values your effort. It’s harder when everyone acts like it’s your job to keep them in order and never seems to—
Ugh. He needs to stop thinking. He needs to eat. Bokuto is still typing—a string of stories about his experiences during the week, on the off chance they’ll help—and Tetsurou is content to let them pile up. He’s ready to set the phone away when he gets a new message, this one from Kenma:
I’m on my way.
It wakes him up instantly, and he stares at the screen for a moment. I’m on my way. That means—here? Two and a half hours of public transit? At night? He shouldn’t have said anything—Kenma will have classes at his own university tomorrow—Tetsurou is no fun to be around right now—
He sits up, determined to at least shower before Kenma gets here. Two and a half hours is plenty of time—too much time, usually, but today it gives Tetsurou time to prepare, to try and seem like less of a mess by the time Kenma arrives.
He wishes he could just be who he used to be. The world has turned to blurred outlines where it used to be strong, bold colors. He wants to shape it back into what it was, but stress and school-related anxiety have sapped his strength until he doesn’t know how to feed himself the necessary amount of calories every day, let alone rediscover the things that give life meaning.
Kenma is coming.
He stands up and heads for the shower, raking a hand through his hair. The world still feels blurry as he steps into the tiled bathroom and begins to wash, but it’s a calmer blur. Routines like washing are easy because they don’t require thinking; he doesn’t have to think are these leftovers still good or what do I have to buy to go with the stuff in the back of the fridge or will Abe have a bad attitude next match if I advise the coach to shift him out for this one.
The pressure in his head worsens and he works to release it, taking deep breaths as he lets the water rinse off the soap. He’ll snap out of this; Kenma is coming. The tension in his shoulders releases just a bit. He finishes rinsing and steps out of the shower, not bothering to bathe after. He pulls on soft clothes. He eats a bruised apple he had in his schoolbag. He waits.
Waiting is easy for Tetsurou now. There was a time when it made him fidget and pace, picking at loose threads on his clothes and letting his thoughts spin, but the tiredness he carries with him as a constant companion these days allows him to zone out in a way he never used to. His brain is glad for the reprieve. Zoned out, there are no worries; there’s nothing at all, really, and nothing at all is preferable to constant headaches.
An hour passes. He eats a little more. He takes a stab at his homework, managing a statistics practice test before his always-low reserve of motivation runs out. He waits.
His phone buzzes, and he launches up, moving to the door in quick strides. That’ll be Kenma at the door of the apartment building waiting to be let in, and Tetsurou goes down to fetch him. For the first time tonight he feels something like real joy bat tiny wings inside of his ribcage. His phone continues to buzz, but he’s at the front door of the complex now, and he pulls it open.
Kenma stands there, his phone held out in front of him. He looks up at Tetsurou with familiar, neutral eyes.
“It’s polite to pick up,” he says, and there’s the tiniest trace of a smile about his mouth. Tetsurou steps out into the chill autumn air and folds himself around Kenma, holding on tight. Kenma’s free hand grips the back of his shirt.
“Hey,” Kenma says, uncowed by Tetsurou’s silence. Tetsurou is crushing both Kenma and the backpack he wears, but Kenma doesn’t seem to mind, and Tetsurou doesn’t think he can let go. The air out here is fresh in Tetsurou’s lungs, sharp, almost sharp enough to make the blurred edges retreat. Perhaps if he opens his eyes now the world will be in focus for the first time in months.
“We should go inside,” Kenma says, and Tetsurou’s grip loosens fractionally. Kenma slips from his hold without dropping contact, tugging Tetsurou into the building behind him and shutting the door. He walks up to Tetsurou’s room with confidence, his eyebrows rising when he sees Tetsurou left the door open; it’s the only open door in the fairly shifty-looking hall.
“You’re going to get robbed,” Kenma says, stepping inside. He takes off his shoes and removes his backpack, taking in the cluttered space. There’s no judgment in his golden gaze. He glances back at Tetsurou and takes his hand again, leading him to the bed. Together they sit down.
Tetsurou still hasn’t said a word. He doesn’t know what to say; he’s happy Kenma is here, but suddenly it’s very obvious to him that Kenma shouldn’t be here. He swallows the lump in his throat.
“Why did you come?” he asks at last. He should have asked three hours ago, when Kenma said he was coming—when he could still have told Kenma not to come.
“I was worried about you,” Kenma says. “Bokuto said you weren’t yourself last weekend when he visited, like you were trying to put on a show, and you said you wished I was here.”
“I say that all the time,” Tetsurou says. He knows he does. He used to send about a message a day saying that.
“Not recently. You used to, but now you don’t say anything like that at all.”
Tetsurou swallows.
“So I thought maybe you’d been thinking it more and saying it less, because it’s harder for you to say it when you mean it.”
The lump in Tetsurou’s throat is unswallowable. His body flushes hot, his fists clenching. He nudges Kenma with his shoulder, trying to seem like his usual self.
“How did you get so smart?” he asks, and his voice is too deep. He tries again to swallow away the thing in his throat.
Kenma looks at him, sighs. He presses him back onto the bed, making him lie down. He curls into him, wrapping Tetsurou’s arm around himself and throwing a leg over Tetsurou’s middle.
“Don’t pretend with me,” Kenma says. “I know you’re unhappy here. Bokuto knows too.”
Tetsurou lets his head fall back, his eyes hot and aching. For a long time he’s silent, then: “I want to quit.”
Kenma moves, putting his weight on his elbow so he can see Tetsurou’s face. After a moment he says, “Then quit.”
Tetsurou huffs a laugh.
“It’s not impossible,” Kenma says. “You’re good with people. You could get a normal job easily until you felt better. If you have to drop out, drop out.”
“Would you drop out?”
“No,” Kenma says. “But I don’t let people dump their responsibility on me. You’re a second year but you’re basically in charge of the team here. That’s not fair on you.”
Tetsurou looks up into Kenma’s earnest eyes, his mouth pressed in a thin line. Drop out? A part of him rebels against the idea—but another relaxes, releasing a knot of tension that has sat inside of him for months. He could drop out and move back if he wants to. Be closer to Kenma and Bokuto and all his other friends. No one made him go to school here where he doesn’t have any roots; he can stop any time.
He rubs his face. “You really think I can quit?”
“You can quit. All that matters is whether you want to.”
They’re silent for a long time, long enough for Kenma to go back to his previous position, resting his head on Tetsurou’s shoulder. Kenma looks different than he did in high school. His hair is longer, and there’s a constant note of confidence in him that only came out around friends before. Does he still disappear into his shell on occasion? Tetsurou isn’t around to see it anymore; he only sees a slightly unfamiliar Kenma with longer hair, who was confessed to by a stranger just last month. By all accounts—half of old-Nekoma texted Tetsurou about it—Kenma was baffled by it.
Tetsurou wasn’t. He’s seen Kenma for what he is all along.
“I’ll think about it,” Tetsurou says at last, feeling better than he has in weeks. He lets out a long breath, cards his fingers through Kenma’s hair. He wishes he could just pause time here until he feels better. He doesn’t feel so out of control with Kenma here, warm and silent under his touch and wanting the best for him.
“I love you,” Tetsurou says, as the pain of not saying it becomes too much. It’s not his first I love you to Kenma—the first was on a rooftop at sunset, with the wind riffling Kenma’s hair and graduation a short way out—but it’s the heaviest. This isn’t an I love you that springs from lightness in his chest and restlessness in his limbs; this one emerges from black tar and slowly limps away from him, mortally wounded.
Kenma brushes the hair back from Tetsurou’s face, pressing kisses to his forehead, his cheekbones, his jawline. He straddles Tetsurou’s waist, pressing their foreheads together, hands framing his face. Slowly Tetsurou’s head tips back, and it’s all the encouragement Kenma needs; their mouths meet in a slow kiss.
For a long time, Tetsurou is lost in the warm comfort of Kenma kissing him, Kenma’s hands cradling his face like he’s something precious, but eventually Tetsurou wants to be the one holding. He breaks off their kiss and moves Kenma, making him lie down instead of straddling. He hooks a leg over Kenma’s and lets himself hold, the way he’d wanted to before at the door. He takes deep breaths of Kenma-warmed air.
“Is this okay?” he asks, not sure how he’ll manage to let go or loosen his grip if it isn’t.
“It’s nice,” Kenma says. He’s not sure whether to believe it, but he wants to, so he doesn’t ask again. He lets one hand cradle the back of Kenma’s head, Kenma’s hair sliding between his fingers.
His breathing slows. He thinks he could sleep like this, and he’d wake up rested. He pushes away thoughts of deadlines, remembering Kenma’s words about quitting—about how unfair it is for so much responsibility to be pushed on him. Maybe Kenma was telling the truth. It isn’t like Kenma to not tell the truth.
“Hey,” Tetsurou says after an age. Kenma has fallen into half-sleep; he stirs at Tetsurou’s voice. “What did you do about the hole in your pocket?”
“Hm? Nothing yet. It’s still there.”
“Do you think you’ll fix it before the next time you wear them?”
“Probably not, unless I tell Mom.”
Tetsurou smiles. His mind is working up to something. The hole in Kenma’s pocket… the way he’s been feeling…
“And will it annoy you that it’s there when you wear them again?” Tetsurou asks.
“Probably. Why?”
“I think… before, I wouldn’t have understood that. I’d think ‘just fix it’. I still think that way. But lately…”
“It’s easier to deal with something sucking than to fix it,” Kenma supplies, and Tetsurou lets out a long sigh because Kenma’s words just now have summarized his entire year. Everything sucks, and while he can see a few things he can improve, the chances of him working up the energy to improve them are slim to none.
“Kuro,” Kenma says. He lift his head slightly, his gaze sincere. “I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to cook for you and stay with you and make sure you stretch.”
Tetsurou isn’t quite sure he heard right. “You have school,” he says numbly.
“I’m blowing it off,” Kenma says. “My grades are good enough, and I’ll get notes from someone. I told my mother and she said okay.”
Kenma’s mother works at the university Kenma attends. “Seriously?”
“Well, she said, ‘do you know how to cook more than just rice’, and I said I could google recipes, and she said she was proud of me, and then she said okay. She misses you too.”
It’s too much. Kenma staying is too much; his mother okay-ing it is too much.
“You can’t,” Tetsurou says. “I’m no good to be around.”
“I don’t care. You’re still you; you’re just depressed you. Let me take care of you for a while, and then we’ll see if you still want to quit. And if you do…”
Fear still clutches at Tetsurou at the mere mention of quitting, but Kenma’s calm voice cuts through it. Maybe, if he does what Kenma says, things will get better. The constant pressure in his head will ease. Maybe.
“Okay,” Tetsurou says, and it’s hard, but it’s not as hard as he was expecting. The world unblurs just a little; the tension in his shoulders eases. “Okay.”
Kenma smiles. “You are going to love my cooking.”
Their eyes meet, both of them remembering Kenma’s lackluster attempts at food preparation during high school. For the first time in what feels like ages, Tetsurou laughs. It’s just a little laugh—barely more than an exhalation—but it marks a change.
Later that night, Kenma undresses him. Tetsurou could do it himself, but there’s something so steady in Kenma’s gaze as he performs this task that Tetsurou doesn’t want to look away, not even for a moment. He lets Kenma undress him, then watches as Kenma undresses himself. They crawl into bed together; Kenma’s skin is hot, smooth, familiar.
They lie facing each other in the too-small bed; Tetsurou’s hand strokes Kenma’s hair.
“You’re going to take care of me,” he says uncertainly. He still can’t quite believe it.
“Until you don’t need me to,” Kenma agrees.
There’s noise from cars outside, but the night feels utterly still somehow, the sounds unreal. Everything is warm, soft. Tetsurou draws Kenma to him.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever not need it,” he says into Kenma’s hair.
Kenma moves into him, reducing the space between them to zero. Kenma’s body blazes with heat.
“Thank you for not giving up on me,” Tetsurou whispers. It sounds pathetic—but he needs Kenma to know how much he appreciates it.
“Idiot,” Kenma says. He rolls in his arms until they’re spooning; his back is fractionally colder, but they fit together even better now. “Don’t thank me for stupid things.”
“Okay,” Tetsurou says. He rests his face against the back of Kenma’s head; the air here is Kenma-scented. “Just thank you, then.”
“You’re welcome.”
Kenma’s hand finds his. Kenma draws the hand up against his chest, folds his own around it. Tetsurou breathes in deeply.
His lungs fill with Kenma-scented air, and for the moment, it’s enough.