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There’s a mildly disturbing croaking from outside the locker room that Kei knows only Kogane would—and could—make. He hurriedly shrugs a blue-gray jacket over the clean black t-shirt he’s just changed into, hoping he doesn’t have to spend any time explaining to his teammates why he’s going to a private clinic for the mandated flu vaccine instead of the city health office, where it’s given for free.
“That should be our battle cry this season. I’ll record myself doing that one again later and send it to Coach,” Kogane says, loud voice reverberating throughout the room when he opens the door and prances in. “He’d thank me for my ingenious idea, that’s for sure.”
A sweaty-faced Kyotani is not far behind Kogane, eyes drilling holes into the back of his teammate’s head. “Whatever. Your understanding of ‘ingenious’ involves noises that people make when they shit their large intestines onto the floor. Don’t come crying to me if Coach threatens to get you lobotomized or something.”
“Well,” Kogane begins, scratching his head while opening his locker. “I bet getting lobotomized feels better than getting flu shots, anyway. I hate injections, man.”
“So you would prefer getting your skull perforated with a sharp ice pick then?” Sheesh. Kei regrets saying something because now he’s caught both of their attention. He resorts to taking his glasses off and cleaning them with the hem of his jacket, somehow glad about the mushy blurriness for once.
He receives an unsolicited outfit commentary from Kogane, who seems to have already forgotten about the concept of the extremely inhumane 1930s surgical procedure. “That fit is fire, Kei!”
“Damn, you speedran your afternoon shower today, Tsukishima. You in a hurry to get that flu vaccine?” Kyotani asks, his rough voice muffled by the towel he’s wiping his face with.
“I took my time. You guys simply overpracticed. It’s 3:30. I need to catch a bus,” Kei puts his glasses back on and bends down to tug at his laces, making sure he doesn’t trip on the way to his destination. The thought of going leaves pinpricks of anxiety all over the back of his neck, skittering up towards his head in dots, like acupuncture. He wills himself to ignore it. “I’ll go ahead.”
He stops in his tracks when he hears Kyotani whistle, the sound piercing the sweat-heavy afternoon air. “Wait up, I hate asking you for a favor but can you reserve seats for us at the city health office?”
And to think he’d get out of here without having to say anything.
He offers him his trademark douchey smirk. “Sorry, can’t. You’ll have to earn your slot yourself.” It’s vague; not exactly a lie. Not the full truth either.
Kogane almost barks at him. “Geez, Mr. Salt Factory. Would it hurt to rebrand? This isn’t high school anymore.”
Waves of shame wash over Kei as his pride levels rise. This isn’t high school anymore.
Victory is written all over Kyotani’s face. “Yeowch, what a burn.”
Of course, Kei doesn’t say it out loud: it doesn’t burn; it’s just the final straw—the final needle—that now makes him feel like a heavily impaled strawberry-shaped pincushion, like the ones under his mom’s drawer back home. He’s pre-occupied with something else, and this might just be the cherry on top.
His teammates probably expect another cruel clapback from him, but his tongue is devoid of any and his mouth, dry. “I’m not going to the city health office. I’ve already booked an appointment at Nekebi Clinic.” He furtively licks his upper lip with purpose. “I thought I’d spent money on it if it meant I could avoid crowds.”
Kogane opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything right away; awkwardly picks at imaginary lint on his jersey shirt. “Ah, I didn’t know.” The incredibly slow and gentle manner he’s said the words gives Kei a hint he’s sorry.
The three of them are a work in progress. He is hyperaware of this. And when most of the time he’d rather stay quiet and mind his own business, he’s crossed boundaries today. So has Kogane. But Kei’s quite… impressed. It’s a simple I didn’t know but it’s a friendly white flag, something Kei himself isn’t yet fully capable of waving.
A blunt, egotistical asshole like him doesn’t deserve this kindness, Kei thinks. This treatment where Kogane can seamlessly pivot his reaction into something else to ease tension. Kei should be the one apologizing. He may be in serious limbic adversity at the moment, but he can almost hear Tadashi yelling at his left ear: That does not make it excusable for you to be a royal pain to your teammates!
Even Kyotani looks slightly apologetic. “Well. Next time, you be clear about it, alright?” For a split second, Kei’s brain does a compare-and-contrast of the Kyotani he recalls from high school—feral snarl, eyeliner thick as night, angst worn like a second skin, spikes sharp and powerful like a blow to the rib—and the Kyotani he is teammates with now: much more mature in the way he carries himself; much more seasoned in the way he carries a game.
The painfully awkward silence is cut short by Kogane’s enthused voice. “Hey, why the grim face? You look really good in that fit!” An epiphany presents itself to Kei: this is Kogane’s love language.
“So good the medical personnel might trip over their feet and stick the needle in the wrong place. Would love that for you.” And this is Kyotani’s.
Kei shakes his head as a small laugh stubbornly escapes its way out of his mouth.
He can hear the rest of their teammates outside; he should go. In a rush, Kei mentally tacks a note to his cerebral corkboard. It says: be less of an ass to them, Kei. The world is way too big to reserve your warmth for one person only.
As unbelievable as it may sound, Kyotani and Kogane are… too good. He doesn’t deserve them, really.
++
He’s not just here for the flu vaccine.
Nekebi Clinic’s waiting room smells like antiseptic and citric-scented air freshener and anticipation. The nurse on duty behind the reception desk, a brown-haired girl whose nametag spells Mika, gives him a radiant smile as she tells him to wait for his name to be called.
Kei obliges, taking a seat by the corner. He’s the last appointment for the day. His unsteady heartbeat nibbles at his logic, taunting him to make a futile attempt at making sense of his irritably-puzzling internal turmoil. He has a system for everything except…. Well, except for emotions. Whenever he tries to analyze them, he comes up empty-handed. They’re broken shards of an undetermined whole, asymptotes that just cannot for the life of them connect with each other.
Kuroo Tetsuro, I think I….
The pinpricky feeling that overwhelmed the base of his neck earlier is back, as if a thousand needles are repeatedly searing his muscles à la whack-a-mole. It must be a symptom of a psychosomatic illness. Or a newborn physical manifestation of a fear he doesn’t have to face until now. Whatever this is… it has extremely perfect timing, what with the flu shot he’s about to get and their amorphous talk about lobotomy earlier.
Hell, maybe getting lobotomized would actually do him some good right now.
How do I even tell you….
Two doors flank the reception desk, and the one to the right opens halfway. A masked nurse clad in green scrubs appears, stealthily walking behind the brown-haired nurse whose nose is buried in a magazine.
She yelps, startled by his hands on her shoulder. “Baby!!” she hushes, then balks, stealing a glance at the lone patient in the room. Clearing her throat, she elbows the guy and reprimands him in a sing-song voice. “Nurse Daisho, keep it professional, alright?”
This must be the lovesick couple Kuroo has complained about before.
A memory as vividly red as a pushpin plays itself in his head: in the comfortable satiny silence of Kei’s apartment in mid-December, they were in bed, Kei pretending to be half-asleep facing away from Kuroo, who was mindlessly scribbling out elements from the periodic table on the cottony canvas of the back of Kei’s sweatshirt. They come up with different terms of endearment, like, every fucking month. September was ‘honey.’ October was ‘apple pie.’ November was ‘baby.’ They recycle the November one, once in a while. They’re quite festive, to be honest. For December, it’s ‘elf’, Kuroo said softly, tone devoid of envy and the polar opposite to the words that filed out of his mouth next, his cupid’s bow brushing the top of Kei’s spine. I wish I could call you ‘baby’ but you’d probably hate that, wouldn’t you? And Kei hadn’t responded, because he couldn’t. Kuroo had laughed it off a few seconds later.
On and off, for the past 8 years, they’ve been what people would put as ‘friends with benefits.’ Eight years of casually fooling around, of which the last two are of Kei lying to Kuroo’s face that this does not mean anything.
Over and over again, they tell each other: Call it quits when you get bored. Call it quits when you find someone more interesting. Call it quits when you don’t want to do this anymore. Call it quits, just because. You don’t owe me an explanation.
And they have, numerous times. Called it quits, that is. Without saying why.
But they always fall towards each other somehow-- like scissor blades when you zing the handles away from each other-- In the backseat of Kuroo’s BMW, at the rooftop of a beachside hotel under the moon’s watchful eye, in Kei’s apartment where the silence renders all their blended noises more pronounced, in Kuroo’s living room when Bokuto and Akaashi aren’t home and they can play-pretend that they’re post-apocalyptic.
You and me. We’re post-men. Post-world. Post-apocalyptic. We’ve endured entropy, Tsukki. But night always ends and Earth restarts itself every damn morning, turning a blind eye upon their deepest fantasies.
Kei’s mind wanders cautiously around the shameful things he’s done with Kuroo, now just realizing he does not regret a thing. It may all have started with a guileless first kiss in the empty storage room of Karasuno High School’s gym during training camp week almost a decade ago, but it has inevitably warped onto whatever unidentified limbic abomination Kei feels for Kuroo now.
He notices movement in his line of vision again: the nurse in green has already retreated back to his consultation room, and a patient—a middle-aged man—comes out of the door to the left, a bunch of paper slips in hand.
Mika beams at the man, guiding him where to sign and uttering a few instructions.
And then Kei hears his name being called and is told to enter the door to the left.
He is nothing but a strawberry pincushion acupunctured to the deepest hidden artery of his heart when he enters Kuroo’s exam area. His olfactory sense immediately picks up the smell of his lavender shampoo; it’s everywhere in this small box of a room. The walls are beige, (Tsukki, do you know what the average color of the universe is? It’s cosmic latte. Beige, if you will) and bare, save for a few infographic charts about flu shots, the evils that smoking can do to one’s body, and the nervous system.
A door to a back room swings open and it startles Kei. Kuroo, all one hundred and eighty-eight centimeters of him clad in blue except for his stubborn bedhead that gleams like black tourmaline under the white fluorescent lights, stops in his tracks, a pack of syringes in one hand. It’s a rare sight; Kei’s only seen him in his work uniform a few times before. He looks good in blue.
“Tsukki,” he huffs behind his mask. It’s gentle, yielding, barely half a breath. It’s clear Kei’s caught him by surprise. It’s such a Kuroo Tetsuro Original not to read the list of patients before he meets them.
They’re a few feet apart, but despite his visual impairment, Kei admires the way Kuroo’s golden brown eyes catch the light. Maybe he’s imagining it; he’s got the sight etched onto his brain, what with the numerous instances he’s stared senselessly at them in the past. He’s usually not one to romanticize the shit out of things, but Kuroo’s eyes, hell, Kuroo’s everything makes him want to douse himself with gasoline and set himself on fucking fire.
No shit. It’s that bad. He’s down bad. After years of incessant denial, he’s just beginning to make peace with that fact.
“Kuroo,” Kei says with practiced nonchalance that he knows Kuroo can see through by now.
And then, the corners of Kuroo’s eyes crinkle in the slightest, hinting at an almost-smirk. “Flu shot?”
“What else could I be here for,” he snickers, gaze momentarily grazing Kuroo’s hands as he watches him approach a table and set to work. If there is a god, a Creator, a higher entity --maybe a multidimensional being-- that had created every human being on earth, Kei comes to the conclusion that they’d spent an awfully long time chiseling Kuroo Tetsuro into perfection, inside and out.
It’s inane how Kei’s jealous of those vials that the man in blue is handling right now. Kuroo’s lithe fingers are swift and caring; Kei has put his desperate mouth against them many times, and he’d do it again if Kuroo allows him to.
“Uh,” Kuroo begins, eyes firm on the needles and vials. “I don’t know, you tell me,” he slyly croons, his low voice cat-like in the slightest degree.
Kei sucks in a breath, his head still allegorically harpooned by pins that represent anxiety, hesitation, longing, white-hot yearning, et cetera et cetera. He needs to divide them into manageable increments: first, the reluctance-to-say-things-out-loud part. Then, the gay-yearning part.
Sure. Easy breezy.
He ends up fumbling with the zipper handle on his bum bag instead. Like when he was five, waiting for Akiteru to pick him up from the first day of kindergarten.
“Take those off, first.”
A palpable silence wedges itself in the distance between them, and Kei whacks it away with a bout of confidence.
“Not the first time,” Kei says calmly. There is a stillness in his voice. “You’ve said that. To me.” The room is quiet save for the overhead drone of the room’s air conditioner. Kei takes off his bum bag first, then his jacket, then tucks his hands into his pockets.
Kuroo stares at him, perplexed, then barely reins a stomach-grabbing laughter in. “Are you- don’t say stuff like that, Tsukki. Trying to be professional here, you know?”
They settle into comfortable, good old banter. It’s been more than a couple of months since they’ve physically seen each other, and Kei thinks that catching up isn’t so bad. It even starts to alleviate the pinprick feels in his head.
There’s nothing professional about this. But neither one of them cares. They talk about everything, letting their words spill over each other. Everything, except the batch of needles in the back of Kei’s throat. Everything, except the reason he’s here.
Everything. The long practice hours, the news of Bokuto and Akaashi moving out of their shared house, the upcoming match between Sendai Frogs and Tamaden Elephants, and then the possibility of Kuroo spending a few years working in Kagawa.
“Kagawa,” Kei echoes.
“Doctor Nekomata wants me to administer his new branch.” Kuroo’s hands, now covered in white latex gloves, swish against Kei’s left bicep as he folds the edges of his sleeve. He rubs circles onto his skin with a wet cotton. The smell of antiseptic wafts onto Kei’s nostrils, almost baleful.
“Sheesh, we shouldn’t be chit-chatting right now as I do this.”
“Kagawa,” Kei says again, tasting blood on his mouth. The batch of needles crawls up his esophagus. “For how long again?”
Kuroo does not make eye contact. He’s fixated on the syringe-centric task, his tone faintly laced with a once-in-a-pink-moon rigidness. “Kenma says one year. Yaku bets his ass it’s more than that.” He straightens up, gives him a thorough pre-vaccine interview. As soon as it’s over, Kei’s façade starts to chip away. More than that.
“You haven’t told me about you relocating.” It comes off indifferent, yet possessive. Selfish. A breach of contract. You don’t owe me an explanation. You don’t owe me anything.
“Yes, well. I did not see any reason to. You know us. We’re…” Kuroo trails off, and the tension between them tightens. He closes the gap between them again, syringe ready. “Relax for a sec, okay?”
And Kei obliges, as always. He can feel Kuroo’s fingers gently dig onto his skin, followed by the ant-bite of the syringe’s needle. Sitting still, he reinvents repression to a higher level. If there is anything he should feel now, it’s numbness. Flu shot after-effects. Neither anger nor sadness. Neither madness nor love. There is nothing here. Kuroo does not care about him that way. Or rather, he no longer does.
Seems like Kei has bad timing.
He tries to wrap his head around it: He realizes that he actually reciprocates the ‘This is something’ and is only about to discard the ‘This is nothing’ sentiment but unbeknownst to him, Kuroo is already lightyears ahead.
It takes him half a nanosecond to let his nature take over: objectivity, logic, intuition. And gives up. Because Kuroo’s going to move on. And find something else, someone else.
What good would it do him to say things out loud?
“I did not see a reason to tell you. Because I didn’t wanna go.” Kuroo leans against the table, almost sitting on the edge; he is ease made flesh. “I haven’t agreed to the whole thing entirely. Kenma, Lev and Yaku are all up for it, though.” He stares off into the distance, then shakes the dreaminess off of his head; chuckles in amusement. “City boys tired of the city life. It is what it is. I’m not one of them though,” he shrugs; proceeds to putting the vials onto a transparent container. “I like it here. For some fucking reason.”
And just like that. All of Kei’s confusion that has momentarily ebbed seconds ago now comes back in full-force. He can name another thing that claws at his shoulder blades like talons: relief.
Eight years of knowing Kuroo, and he still gets surprised. Eight years, and maybe more.
Maybe more. If only he can lift his tongue and say something.
A knock on the door rouses both them from their half-lidded non-conversation. Daisho, the nurse in green, peeks in. He no longer has a mask on his face, and Kei can now see he has a cunning, snake-ish look to him. “Sorry to interrupt, but is everything okay? Kuroo, what’s taking this so long?”
“Is there another appointment after this?” Kuroo inquires, casually.
Daisho shakes his head no. “I just thought something went wrong, since you usually take a few minutes to administer a vaccination. Well,” he says brusquely, then his gaze hops to Kei suspiciously. “Seems like everything’s fine.” In a breakneck heartbeat, the door closes with a softness to it. He’s gone, and they’re alone again.
“Tch, sorry, Tsukki. Didn’t even notice the passage of time,” he turns his focus to Kei, examining his stone-cold face with so much fondness. Kei swears his entire digestive system wants to flip under his inspection, even if he’s been the subject of it so many times before. “Heh, well, we ticked Daisho off. I can just tell he’s going to talk about this to Doc Nekomata. Hmm, maybe he and Mika should be the ones sent off to Kagawa. They could use some change of scenery.”
Kei doesn’t care about who’s going to Kagawa as long as it’s him who gets to stay here. As long as he wants to stay here.
“Kuroo Tetsuro.” A hundred thousand needles spill out of his mouth. “I think this isn’t nothing anymore.” And a hundred thousand more. “I think I’m in love with you.”
There’s an offbeat soreness that starts to plague his chest. It’s a late realization, but all this time, he is just waiting for rejection, and nothing more. And he almost wills it to come. He’s not delusional. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t deserve Kuroo just as much as he doesn’t deserve friendship from Kogane and Kyotani.
Kuroo almost drops a vial. The tip of his nose that his mask doesn’t conceal glints under the lighting of the room with sweat. It’s Kei’s favorite to touch with the tip of his index finger. Perfect slope, Kuroo. He’d trace the bridge of his nose all the way from that small spot that seems to hog all of his admiration for him.
Really? A persistent but obviously mocking pout. If I weren’t conventionally attractive, you’d never say sappy shit like that.
That had made him laugh. Hmm, so you think you’re conventionally attractive?
The present Kuroo only keeps staring at him.
“You heard me, didn’t you?”
Faintly, disbelievingly, he replies “Yes.” It’s not what Kei expects, but Kuroo follows it up with “Why? Why do you say so?”
There’s no need for time to think. This is Kuroo. His Kuroo, even though he’s aware he doesn’t own him, really. “Because, you don’t leave when I push you away. You don’t leave, at all. You just keep your distance. Not too far away that I can’t ever reach you again. Not close enough that I feel suffocated. Just the right,” he almost stumbles over his words. “Just the right amalgamation of distance and proximity; pretentious diction, I know. But I’ve never seen anyone do that with me.” He’s almost gasping for air. “Not even Tadashi. Not even my own brother. Not anyone ever. Just. Just you.”
Kuroo stands there, blinking multiple times. Even if disbelief is still scrawled over his half-visible face, Kei can see something else. Mirth, incoming. Bubbling up to the surface. “That was… poetic?”
Kei rolls his eyes in response. “I had to get it out.”
He hears laughter. He’d catch the sound of it with his own damn hands if he could and put it into a jar. A short second later, he hears him say, “You do the same, you know?” When Kei doesn’t respond, Kuroo continues. “You keep the same reachability.” Taps a foot. “Everyone says everybody dies alone. But all those eight fucking years of… whatever we’ve been doing. Those sure made me feel all set to die a million times.”
“Huh. What is this, a poetry-writing contest?” But he feels the soreness in his chest subside. The needles in his mouth are all gone, leaving only the aftertaste of some semblance of euphoria (contentment, perhaps?).
Kuroo scoffs. “Ha! Maybe, maybe.”
“And you said you’re all set to die? So you don’t want any more? Just those eight years?” Kei can feel his heartbeat even out, rhythm-wise.
Theatrically, Kuroo scoffs again, jutting his chin out and looking the other way. “’Course I…want more. Need more. It’s all I’ve been waiting for, all these years.” He crosses his arms; feigningly sulks. The sight pulls the corners of Kei’s mouth into a shy grin.
“So.”
“So,” Kuroo copies, eyes back on Kei. Full of unconcealable affection. Sly and flashy in all Kuroo Tetsuro ways possible.
“What now?” He honestly doesn’t know. This isn’t just a session of, well, fooling around. This is the real thing. And he’s still to get used to it without feeling like he wants to pass out of disgust at his own mushy feelings.
“I guess we can call it a day, Tsukki. And I can now call you baby.” Kuroo erupts into laughter, palm on the flat of his stomach, when he sees Kei’s signature scowl.
Kei may not let it show just yet. But he can feel it. Mirth, incoming. All the way from the lowest pits of his gut. Through the eye of a needle. Bubbling up to the surface.