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Hitoka has what may be the most important realisation of her teen life, one inconsequential afternoon in her first year of high school. At least that’s how she tells it to Kei years later.
It’s just a couple of days after she joined the volleyball club and while she’s committed now, she can’t help the doubt that creeps up on her sometimes. Is she really making the right choice here? Can she handle the responsibility? What if they secretly hate her and want her gone? What if—
But then, one day, she’s on the way to the gym and she’s late—just three minutes—because she had to stay behind to ask the teacher about her assignment, and she’s hurrying towards the gym when the tall shape of Tsukishima catches her attention.
It’s sometimes easy to miss him, despite his height, and his blond hair. His silence—when he isn’t antagonising other team members, that is—allows him to blend into the background, something Hitoka is quite envious of.
She comes to a halt, intrigued but also slightly guilty for being so nosy.
There’s a girl with him, barely tall enough to reach his shoulder, and Hitoka recognises her instantly by the toffee brown hair. Kawahara Setsuka, from class 1-3. Hitoka has never talked to her but she knows of her, the way everybody does because she’s pretty and that means a lot in high school
Very pretty even, Hitoka thinks and watches as Kawahara hands a pastel pink letter to Tsukishima with a nervous smile.
They would look good together. Both warm tones of honey and caramel. That’s the first thought that crystallises in her head once she understands what’s happening before her eyes. But then she spots the slight wrinkle on Tsukishima’s forehead, barely a frown, a chip in his overwise smooth expression as he stares at the envelope in his hand and something clicks.
Hitoka has known of Tsukishima before she joined the club, too, the same way she knows of Kawahara because the girls in her class whisper about the tall, smart blond from class 1-4, about how pretty he is, and that he has never accepted a confession.
And sure, Tsukishima is pretty, like a statue maybe, or a painting, or a flower, but she has never given him much more thought than that. She can understand why other people would confess to him, but could never see herself doing the same
She wonders what it feels like to receive a confession, what it would be like to have Kawahara confess to her instead of Tsukishima and something click for the second time.
Oh.
In the days she’s spent with the team so far she didn’t really feel strongly about Tsukishima either way, more distracted by Hinata’s enthusiasm or Yamaguchi’s kindness towards her, but now she can feel a sense of kinship blossoming within her. Now, she feels grateful for his presence.
She doesn’t have any doubts about joining the volleyball club after that.
And maybe that’s when everything changes.
It’s not so much a realisation for Kei that he likes boys, it’s more the fact that most other boys don’t . It sneaks up to him in middle school when Yamaguchi quietly confesses he would like to hold the hand of the girl that sits two rows in front of him and all Kei can do is glance at Saitou on the other side of the room and think, why not him?
He’s ready to drop the whole matter hours later, but then he overhears some girls gossipping around lunchtime.
“Tsukishima-kun is really tall, isn’t he?” One of them whispers and Kei can feel her eyes on him.
When he glances up, she quickly turns away and flushes an embarrassed pink. He doesn’t quite get it—being tall doesn’t mean anything—so instead he returns his focus to his bento, picking at his food.
“Yes, but Saitou-kun’s smile is so much nicer.” And that, Kei can agree with. It is a really nice smile.
Later that day, on the walk home he turns to Yamaguchi, headphones dangling around his head uselessly.
“Do you think Saitou has a nice smile?”
Yamaguchi, for what it’s worth, doesn’t seem to think it a strange question. He tilts his head slightly, hums as he thinks and his nose scrunches up the way it always does when he tries new food or Kei plays a song for him he hasn’t heard before.
“Mh. Maybe? I don’t think I’ve ever paid attention to it.”
I do. I pay attention to it, Kei thinks but he stays quiet. And yet, understanding sets in.
Yamaguchi doesn’t ask any further questions so Kei slides his headphones into place, digs out his phone and puts a random playlist on, hoping the bass vibrating in his ears will make him forget.
It doesn’t.
I like boys I like boys I like, the beat whispers, rhythm spelling out a truth he can no longer avoid. I like boys and that’s not normal.
It doesn’t get any easier. Not when he meets Kageyama Tobio and all Kei can think is how pretty his eyes are and, suddenly, something ugly within him rears its head, bites and snarls, baring its teeth so Kei bites too, lashing out with a tongue sharp enough to make you bleed.
So, it’s fair to say he doesn’t join the volleyball club on the best note. But he joins, and that’s what matters, according to Yamaguchi.
Still, there’s a shadow in every room Kei walks into, in the shape of Akiteru, and he doesn’t have time for this , for anything, not when he has to focus on his grades and—how much time can you really spend not thinking about something anyway?
Too much, he finds out, late at night, when he lies awake.
It helps that once he gets to know Kageyama better, any residue attraction he has unknowingly harboured is transformed into annoyance pretty quickly. He’d be frustrated but mostly he’s relieved he can go back to pretending, find his footing again and move on.
Then, Nekoma arrives. And with Nekoma comes Kuroo Tetsurou, and with Kuroo Tetsurou comes calamity.
They don’t even interact, barely exchange more than a handful of words, but Kei glances at the boy by his side, separated by the net, gingerly takes him in.
After an hour he has collected an assortment of facts:
First, Kuroo is a skilled player and Kei’s eyes follow him against his will as they try to break down the way he moves, that is mostly due to his technique and not the way his shorts ride up when he crouches down and gets ready to jump.
Second, Kuroo is annoying. From his questionable hairstyle, smarmy smirk and old-man comments to his obnoxious laugh. It pulls out the ground from below Kei’s feet. Where he was stumbling before, at pretty eyes and pretty smiles, he is falling now. There is no more ground to stumble on.
Third, Kuroo is tall and Kei finally understands what those girls in middle school were whispering about. Just the thought of how easily Kuroo could reach out and wrap his arms around him, he wouldn’t even have to crane his neck to kiss him and it’s too much, too soon, it’s—
It’s just a silly little crush. It’s hormones. It’s not normal.
It doesn’t matter. Because he won’t act on it, nothing will happen, he doesn’t even know Kuroo, so once Nekoma is on their way back home, Kei takes all Kuroo Tetsurou related thoughts, folds them neatly, places them in a box and pushes it to a far off corner in the back of his mind to collect dust, right next to the one labelled Akiteru.
He’s done, he’s over it, he ignores the hours late at night he spends caught somewhere between awake and asleep, when he pictures Kuroo smiling at him, holding his hand, kissing him. Thinks about what being Kuroo Tetsurou’s boyfriend would be like and he’s twenty minutes into creating an elaborate scenario inside his head where Kuroo surprises him and picks him up from school on his birthday and Kei pretends to be annoyed by it because he both doesn’t care for birthday surprises nor flaunting one’s relationship like that, but he’s secretly pleased, until he realises what he’s doing.
Mortified, in the privacy of his bedroom, Kei turns around, buries his head in his pillow and groans.
“Stop it,” he mumbles into the pillow, but his cheeks heat up treacherously regardless.
Nobody has to know, that’s how he consoles himself. Nobody will ever know.
But then Yachi happens.
She walks up to him one afternoon when he’s on the way to the club room to get changed for training, hands hidden behind her back, eyes darting around with nerves, but mouth set in determination.
“Tsukishima-kun, could I talk to you for a moment?” Her back straightens, and for a second, Kei can see an edge of the girl she’s yet to become.
He nods, following her to the side of the gym where it’s quiet and the shrubbery protects them from curious eyes.
Usually, this is where a girl would hand Kei a letter, stutter out a confession and Kei would feel sick to his stomach, look up at the sky and try his best to come up with a rejection that doesn’t border on cruel or mean, that doesn’t leave him with cracks in his armour.
“Are you…,” she pauses. The air around them feels heavy, too thick to breathe so Kei holds his breath. Waits.
There’s that edge to her again. The steel hidden in her spine, as shoulders draw back and brown eyes meet his.
“Are you like me?” The weight of it is undeniable and Kei’s shuddery exhale is the only sound breaking the silence that has wrapped around them.
Are you like me? There’s a truth hiding beneath, glimmering like the hot tar of the streets in the sunlight. A mirage. He knows better than to trust his eyes, to hope.
‘Like you?’ he wants to ask but a soft voice interrupts them before the words can get out.
“Hitoka-chan, Takeda-sensei is looking for you.” Shimizu, cool and collected as ever. She glances at Kei. “You two should hurry up if you don’t want to be late. Training is about to start.”
“Shimizu-senpai,” Kei nods in acknowledgement before returning his focus to Yachi.
“Yes—I…of course, Takeda-sensei—why?—have I done–right away, Shimizu-senpai.”
Kei watches in fascination as Yachi trips over words, a rose tint rising to her cheeks. Embarrassment or something more? He wonders.
She finishes with a nod, eyes only on Shimizu, Kei completely forgotten and now he understands. His eyes follow her as she scuttles along, momentarily paralysed by the shift in his reality.
It’s a strange feeling, to realise you’re no longer alone when you hadn’t even been aware of loneliness in the first place.
He waits until they take their first break after spiking practice, accepts the water bottle and towel Yachi hands him with a mumbled thanks and then, once he’s gulped down enough water and wiped away his sweat he turns to her.
“I guess you could say I’m like you.”
There’s a shift in gravity that goes unnoticed by either of them as slowly, irrevocably everything falls into place.
Looking into someone’s eye and seeing yourself, it draws you in. Kei, in a move of proactiveness that surprises himself, begins to join Yachi for lunch, and in return Yachi turns up at Kei’s home for study dates that are never about studying at all.
At this point, he’s pretty sure half the team think they’re dating, and isn’t that the most ridiculous thought?
Yamaguchi at least is easily placated by Kei’s affirmations that there is nothing going on, they’re just friends and it’s the truth even if it feels like a lie.
Their mothers, however, not so much.
Reminders to leave the door open and watchful eyes follow their every move, but fortunately Yachi’s mother is a busy woman and out a lot, and Kei figures out a way to sneak Yachi in through his bedroom window late at night.
He’s sure, if they were to get caught it would only make matters worse, but it’s not their fault that honesty comes easiest at night time. After months and months of keeping his mouth shut, the words are finally spilling over, from Kei’s lips into Yachi’s eager waiting hands, and he doesn’t know how to go back to keeping his mouth shut.
As soon as the sun goes down, once the last ray of light has caressed the earth, they slip into another dimension that consists of just one of their beds and them, laying on their backs and staring at the ceiling, shoulder to shoulder.
“Kei-kun,” Hitoka whispers, because at this point she can never be Yachi again. Not when she found the hidden boxes in the corner of Kei’s mind, dusted them off and began to unpack them as if it was the easiest task in the entire world.
“Have you ever kissed someone?” The question hangs in the air between them, like all things do at this hour, words strung up like spider webs.
“No.” He tries to swallow down the yearning that bubbles up with the air rushing from his lungs, but some of it manages to slip past his teeth.
Hitoka notices, bumping her shoulder into his, understanding and assent in one.
“Do you want to?”
If this were any other story, if they were any other two people, Kei thinks, maybe the main characters from a book, this would be more than a simple question. Hands would intertwine, bodies would curl towards each other and lips would meet. But it’s not a book. So all he says is, “Yes.”
He bumps her shoulder in return.
“Me too,” she agrees.
She asks a lot of questions, like when did you know? Can you tell me about him? What’s Kuroo-san like? Do you want to kiss him? And Kei reads her spider-webbed words in the ceiling, strings his replies in between, watches as they shudder with every breath; In middle school, there was a boy. He had a nice smile, that’s it. Annoying, but I think I like that. Yes, no, I want him to kiss me.
In return he asks her about Shimizu, about her moment, about who she wants to kiss, and she tells him how she just thinks Shimizu is pretty, how she saw him reject a girl one day at school and how happy she would be to kiss any girl at all.
And then the sun rises again, and reality creeps in carried by golden rays and Kei packs everything back into its designated box and hides it away from sight.
Until the Tokyo training camp happens.
“Would it be alright if I sat next to Ke—Tsukishima-kun this time?” Hitoka asks Yamaguchi just as he’s about to drop into the empty seat next to Kei. It earns her a couple of curious stares, mostly from Sugawara and Yamaguchi himself, but the latter complies easily enough.
“Of course,” he says, nose scrunching up a little and Kei doesn’t even want to know what kind of theory he’s coming up with in that brain of his, but then he picks up his bag and with one final glance at Kei—one that says I’m letting it go but we’ll talk about this later—he moves a couple of seats back into the empty spot next to Hinata.
“Hey,” Hitoka drops into the now vacated seat and Kei knows that tone of voice well enough by now. It’s the one that means that she’s been thinking about something.
He takes his headphones off, letting them rest around his neck, but leaves the music on so that it still wafts softly around his ears.
“So, I’ve been thinking,”—Kei can feel the corner of his mouth twitching up into a smile—, “we should make a deal.”
He raises an eyebrow at her, expecting her to elaborate further but she doesn’t, not quite attuned to the minimal language of his face yet. It’s a funny thought, considering how close they’ve become, how much she already knows about him, but that’s what he gets for only showing his feelings in the dark.
“What?”
“A deal?” He prompts.
“Oh, yes, you know,” she lowers her voice, leaning in surreptitiously. “The thing we’ve been talking about.”
That… doesn’t exactly clear things up.
“The kissing ,” she hisses under her breath when his face remains blank and he prays that nobody else in the bus can hear them.
Still, he motions at her to be quieter, just in case.
“I was thinking,” she complies, voice shifting into barely a whisper. “We should try it. You know, you with your captain,” —Kei chokes on dry air—, “and me with—” She halts.
He cuts in. “With one of the managers?” He means it as a joke, as a distraction, fingers tapping on his thigh along to the beat of the music still playing from his headphones, but the pink flush that colours Hitoka’s face tells him that this is exactly what she’s been thinking.
She turns her face away, clearly embarrassed.
He wants to say no, wants to scoff and say it’s a ridiculous idea, because it is, and what good can even come of it, but deep down in his chest, he feels a pull. He wants , desperately so, and hates himself a little for it. His boxes are already filled to the brim and he knows now how freeing it can be to empty them out. It makes him want to be brave.
“Okay,” he agrees, eventually.
“Okay?” Hitoka squeaks and he knows that tone of voice, too. Giddy excitement mixed with fear.
“Okay,” he repeats and pushes his headphones back into place, hoping the music will distract him from the emotions bubbling up in his chest. He can feel his pulse thundering through his entire body and when Hitoka slumps against him, he’s sure she can feel it too.
Her head settles against his shoulder, a constant reminder of her presence. It helps, a little, to not be alone.
Tokyo is oppressive in its heat and the way it makes the bubbling emotions in Kei’s chest come to a boil, steam clogging his throat, because just the thought that Kuroo Tetsurou is here, just a glance at him from under his lashes makes it harder to breathe.
It’s annoying, it’s pathetic, it’s tragic.
Who is Kuroo Tetsurou, that he has such a hold on him?
You barely know him , Kei reminds himself. But do you have to know someone to want to kiss them?
He tries his best to wipe Kuroo from his mind once they start to play, no matter the deal he has just made, but his thoughts and eyes are traitors that like to wander.
By the end of the day, he has collected enough glances to add to his list:
Fourth, Kuroo is a good captain. It’s there in every move he makes on and off court, the encouraging words, the soft touches as he checks in with his players and even the way he is not afraid to scold them when necessary.
Fifth, Kuroo is a genuinely good guy. Someone who pretends very hard not to be, as he pokes fun at his friends, needles them, laughs his hacking laugh and wears a carefree smile but there's a look in his eyes, tinted by concern and affection, and Kei wants to scream, because who does that. Who’s like that?
At least Hitoka seems to be doing better than him. When it’s time for dinner, he watches her make her way over to his table only to be intercepted by one of the Fukurodani managers. She smiles wide at Hitoka who, by now, is blushing already, glancing back and forth between the table with the other managers the girl is pointing to and Kei.
He gives her a hint of an encouraging nod, as much as he dares to anyway, and that settles it. Hitoka exhales, pulls back her shoulders in determination and smiles at the Fukurodani manager with a nod.
“Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on between you and Yachi?”
Kei’s head snaps around abruptly to face his best friend.
“There’s nothing go—”
“I know, I know. ‘There’s nothing going on, we’re just friends’, that’s what you were about to say, right?” Kei doesn’t understand why everybody always thinks Yamaguchi is so meek. Not when he has eyes that could cut through steel.
Kei swallows. It’s enough for Yamaguchi. Unlike Hitoka, he can read Kei’s face like a book.
“Just because you’re friends, doesn’t mean there can’t be something else going on.” His voice shifts into something less harsh, but his jaw is set with a biting edge.
The heavy realisation sinks in, that Kei probably hasn’t been the easiest to be friends with these past few weeks. Not to Yamaguchi, at least, and his best friend deserves better than that.
But Kei can’t just talk about this, now, here of all places, with the sun still up.
“I—,” he wants to give an explanation but there is none. “Can we talk about this back home?”
Yamaguchi studies his face, carefully reading Kei’s expression for a moment that feels like eternity. Then the fight washes from his body. He nods. “I’ll hold you to that.”
And that should be it, things should be over, except they aren’t because Kei is Kei which mainly means one thing; Kei is difficult.
It starts when Kuroo and the Fukurodani captain, Bokuto, ask him to block for him and Kei’s insecurities get the best of him. Something ugly rears its head within him once again, baring its teeth. This time Kei doesn’t bite, the only one that bleeds when his tongue cuts is himself.
It only comes to an end when Yamaguchi yells at him, but in between it all, there is Kuroo.
His presence is announced by a shadow falling over Kei as he steps up to where Kei is lying in the grass of the nearby hill, blocking out the sun—something that Kei considers pretty ironic considering Kuroo’s proximity makes him feel the heat more than the glaring of the sun ever could.
He blinks his eyes open, sluggish from the heat and finds Kuroo’s face hovering above him, drenched in shadows while the sunlight makes the tips of his inky black hair glint coppery.
There’s nothing special to it, Kei can’t even read his expression, and yet, he forgets how to breathe.
“I wanted to apologise.”
Kei stays silent, lungs collapsed.
“So, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have provoked you like that, I—,” he abruptly cuts off. Takes a deep breath, exhales.
“So, yeah. I’ll… I’ll leave you to it, yeah.” And with that he turns around, just when Kei’s lungs begin to work again and in a moment of pure desperation that he will be embarrassed about later, his hand shoots out, long fingers settling around the naked skin of Kuroo’s ankle.
Kuroo freezes, turns back around and now, at least, the light illuminates half his face. Just enough that Kei can see his mouth, slightly open in surprise, and the wide-eyed look in his eyes. He’s not sure this is better.
“You—,” he pauses to clear his throat. The feeling of Kuroo’s warm skin beneath Kei’s cool fingers burns itself into his memory. “You have nothing to apologise for.”
With that, he releases Kuroo from his slack grasp, turns away to hide his face, and tries to calm the fluttering in his stomach, as he adds another point to his list.
Sixth, Kuroo is kind and Kei may be falling in love with him. It vaguely feels like heartbreak.
But then Yamaguchi yells at him and somehow he ends up back in the third gym with Kuroo’s arm heavy around his shoulders as he pulls him along, skin burning into Kei through the thin cotton of his shirt.
And it doesn’t stop there. Kuroo’s hands, warm big palms, rough with callouses but gentle in their touch, keep reaching out, touching Kei’s arms and wrists and shoulders as he demonstrates a specific blocking posture or sometimes, nothing at all.
Seventh, Kuroo Tetsurou likes to touch. Kei thinks it may soon be the death of him.
That night he sneaks out to meet with Hitoka. They climb on top of the grassy hill, settle down shoulder to shoulder, for once no ceiling above them, just the black of the sky.
It feels strange without the stars, surreal, only the bright moon shining down at them.
The moon in the dark night sky. Dark like Kuroo’s hair, moon bright like the look in his eyes when he laughs. Empty like the air Kei is falling through when warm palms burn into his skin. Surreal like the feeling locked deep in his chest.
He is Achilles, bathed in the river Styx, the only thing keeping him from drowning is Kuroo’s tight grip around his heart.
“Kei-kun,” Hitoka whispers, bony shoulder pressed to his where she’s lying on the bed of grass next to him. “That’s really gay.”
There’s no pillow to hide his face in, nothing to swallow his embarrassed grown, only his hands flying up to cover his face, even though he knows Hitoka won’t look at him.
She’s right. But even the blackness of the night isn’t dark enough for Kei to say that out loud, to admit outright what a mess Kuroo has turned him into.
Instead, he changes the topic.
“How is it going with your managers?”
Hitoka giggles. “They think I snuck out to meet up with a boy.”
She did sneak out to meet up with a boy, but Kei doesn’t voice the thought. They both know.
“Have you decided who you want to kiss yet?”
“Yeah,” Hitoka breathes, voice wistful and they leave it at that. Both content to get lost in the starless sky above, even when every beat of Kei’s heart whispers Kuroo Kuroo Kuroo.
He doesn’t care so much about being normal anymore. Not when it can feel like this.
After that, it seems like a dam has broken, because suddenly Kuroo floods every minute of Kei’s life. If not with his hands, then with his voice that, no matter what, always cuts clearly through the masses even when he’s on the other side of the gym, or his gaze that seems to cage Kei in.
He has no choice, his body falls towards Kuroo all on its own. Shifting closer when they sit next to each other, arms just a millimetre shy of touching, turning towards his voice at all times, not only when it calls his name.
Tsukki Tsukki Tsukki , Kuroo’s voice haunts Kei’s mind, sending him down a spiral of fantasies that are full of slow afternoons and honest smiles and hands that never stop touching, and Kei feels like his armour has been shattered into tiny pieces, from protective walls it’s been rendered to a collection of cracks, baring a little too much of Kei’s soul.
His only reprieve is Hitoka who, on the final evening, comes rushing towards Kei, happy smile on her face and for once so carefree that Kei can’t help but smile in return.
She pulls him aside, leads him to a hidden away corner behind one of the gyms and then slumps onto the ground, back against the brick wall. Kei follows suit.
“I did it,” it’s not a whisper this time. It’s loud enough for anyone who happens to pass by to hear, and it feels big, nothing like jittery spider webs hanging from the ceiling. “I kissed her.”
For once when they talk, the sun is visible in the sky, even if it’s setting. It feels right, Kei thinks, the confession too solid for the dead of night. It deserves to be real.
“Which one?” He asks, even though he suspects he knows the answer already, thinking back to that first evening.
“Suzumeda,” Hitoka says and Kei can hear the smile in her voice. The sun may be in the sky, but her shoulder is still digging into his arm. A casual reminder.
“The one with the ponytail?” Kei asks, although he has never heard the name before, just assumes from that memory of her intercepting Hitoka at dinner.
“Yeah,” she breathes, voice still giddy and her head drops to lean against Kei’s shoulder.
He allows his eyes to drift close for a second, just basking in the feeling of not being alone, in the happiness he feels for his friend.
The approaching footsteps can barely be heard, softened by the grass, but Kei doesn’t even have to open his eyes to know who it is. A shiver runs through him.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
He feels Hitoka stiffen against his arm, then jump to her feet.
“Kuroo-san,” she exclaims, and Kei flutters his eyes open, only to find Kuroo already staring at him.
Hitoka babbles something about Kuroo not interrupting anything, clearly nervous although Kei doesn’t know why, and then she hurries off with a rushed goodbye. He’s not paying too much attention to it, too busy being caught by Kuroo’s gaze.
Kuroo drops into the empty space next to him, knee pressing into Kei’s. He can’t help but stare at their bare skin, the contrast of their colours. How nice it looks, even if the contact is searing through Kei’s skin down to his soul.
Is this how Icarus felt, when he felt the sun kiss his wings for the first time? If it is, Kei wouldn’t mind flying closer either, wouldn’t mind crashing and burning from it.
“I heard a rumour about you two,” Kuroo says eventually.
Kei can’t decipher the tone of his voice, wishes he knew what is laced between the words. Curiosity, jealousy? Something else entirely? He hopes.
“It's not true,” he says simply because it’s the truth. His face slowly turns to Kuroo in hopes to catch a glance at his expression, but once again, Kuroo’s eyes are already waiting for him.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.” He’s not smiling, but he seems pleased, regardless. Something about the way he bumps his arm into Kei’s side, but instead of pulling away after, leaves it there.
It feels like a hand reaching out, a tentative step in Kei’s direction and he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t think clearly, all there is, is his heart hammering in his chest, pulse thundering so loudly that Kuroo must feel it, and his body is consumed by a simple want , a need so desperate it hurts.
He wants to be brave, wants to be honest, but it’s hard when the sun is shining down at them, highlighting all the feelings Kei tries to hide away, illuminates his half-unpacked boxes, and Kuroo looks at him, gaze slipping through the clenched fingers that try to pull Kei’s cracked armour back into place.
“It’s my last night here,” Kei whispers, words heavy with everything he can’t say.
Kuroo smiles, eyes lighting up with something that Kei hopes is understanding. Please, let it be understanding.
His body begins to curl towards Kei’s, the arm that’s pressed against his twists, hand sliding into place inbetween Kei’s fingers, eyes never moving from his.
Kei tries his best to remember how to breathe, squeezes the warm hand that holds his, fingers interlocked and like the tide returning to shore, he begins to drift into the boy in front of him.
Kuroo’s other hand comes up to hold Kei’s chin between two careful fingers, tilts it towards him and holds it in place gently.
“Tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” Kuroo breathes, offering Kei an out because he’s kind and impossible like that. It makes Kei’s heart ache.
There are snarky words ready on his tongue, but he’s too busy staring into Kuroo’s eyes, brown turned mahogany in the light of the setting sun.
“Tsukki,” Kuroo prompts when he stays quiet for too long, worry furrowing his brows until a small wrinkle appears between. Kei wants it gone, wants to smooth it out with a thumb, but he has long lost control over his body.
“You’re a grown boy, aren’t you? You should know how to read by now.” There’s no bite to his words, only a confession that he can’t fully admit to yet, but the wrinkle vanishes from Kuroo’s forehead, telling Kei that he understands.
Kuroo’s face leans in closer and Kei’s eyes flutter shut because there’s only so much he can allow himself to fall for Kuroo in one week. Then soft lips connect with his—there’s a second where he panics, too aware of his habit of biting his lips and how chapped they must be from it, but then his brain fizzles out, thoughts giving way to pleasant white noise as his waves come crashing into Kuroo’s shore.
He’s never been kissed before, doesn’t know if Kuroo has much experience either, but he does his best to mimic the movement of his lips, to encourage, to give back, gasps into it when teeth softly nip at his lower lip.
Kuroo breaks away, too soon for Kei’s taste, and—how is it possible to miss someone who’s still touching you?
“Again,” Kei demands before he can even think to control his voice.
Kuroo chuckles—it makes Kei want to kick him—but obeys quickly.
This time, it’s more heated, intensity rising. The hand that holds Kei’s chin, moves along his jaw in a caress and comes to a halt when strong fingers are tangled with the hair at Kei’s nape.
He lets out a pleased gasp, and his own hand that has been gripping the grass next to him uselessly, in hope for purchase, reaches out to settle tentatively on Kuroo’s hip.
It sends a pleasant rumble through Kuroo’s chest—a noise that Kei vows to draw out as often as possible—and the fingers in Kei’s hair tighten a little.
He gasps in surprise at the fluttery feeling travelling down his spine and Kuroo uses the moment to sneak his tongue past Kei’s open lips.
Well, that answers the question about Kuroo’s experience, but that’s the last coherent thought Kei has.
It all ends too soon, when Kuroo breaks away, chest heaving and mutters something about being responsible but by then the sun has already vanished from the sky.
When Kei sneaks back to his waiting futon, carefully sidestepping his teammates, all either asleep or about to be, he is glad, for once, that they’ll probably just assume he’s been out with Hitoka again.
Well, maybe not all of them, he thinks, when the next day Kuroo walks up to him as they’re about to get on the bus, holding out his phone for Kei to put his contact info in, Yamaguchi by his side, nose scrunched up a little, a curious tilt to his head. Kei doesn’t mind as much as he thought he would.
Kuroo’s smile when he gets on the bus is wide and honest, nothing like his teasing smirk and Kei doesn’t even try to hide his own smile, much more subtle than Kuroo’s but no less honest, that answers it.
Hitoka gives him a thumbs up when he walks past where she is sitting next to Shimizu, and he knows that she’ll be crawling through his window one of these upcoming nights to needle the story out of him.
He drops into an empty seat by the window, glances out only to find Kuroo watching him. He wants to roll his eyes, but can’t. He’s too happy.
Instead he fiddles with his headphones, ready to place them over his ears but then Yamaguchi sits down next to him and Kei freezes.
He thinks for a moment, contemplates, then turns to his friend, headphones still in hands.
“Do you want to go grab ice cream once we get back?” The offer is tentative, unlike him, so he clears his throat and tries again, more determined. “I have something I want to tell you.”
Yamaguchi smiles, and just like that Kei knows it’s going to be alright.