It's a well-known fact that Kenma is good at noticing things, that he's good at reading people and situations. And, sure, maybe Kuroo doesn't have half of Kenma's observational or strategic skills, and maybe he can be a bit oblivious at times, but he knows how to read Kenma.

Maybe this ability was born out of necessity for basic communication with this boy that has been by Kuroo's side since as long as he can remember, or maybe it's something he decided to fine-tune over the years out of a deep-seeded and subconscious desire to get closer to his childhood friend.

Then again, maybe Kuroo didn't train it at all, not like he trained his math skills or his volleyball spikes and this ability to wordlessly understand each other is something that grew naturally between the two boys, like a seed that sprouted from the earth and grew strong with their cultivation.

Kuroo is familiar with how intent Kenma's gaze becomes when he observes, how his quiet voice floods with conviction as he communicates his thoughts with others. Kuroo can imagine those gears working in Kenma's head, mid jump, knowing exactly what to do to thwart, over and over again, opponents that are more physically capable than him.

The older boy also knows how those same keen observational skills that have helped Nekoma win countless matches can overwhelm Kenma in crowds, where there is always too much to observe and too much to analyze. He's familiar with how Kenma's eyes cast themselves downwards and his nails dig into his palms as his hands clutch tightly into fists in an attempt to release the tension of being unable to find a single focal point.

The older boy is finely attuned to Kenma's presence regardless of how large or how loud a room is, regardless of how many other people are vying for everyone's attention- like Bokuto or Hinata to whom eyes are constantly drawn due to their loudness and their theatrical antics. Even when he can't find Kenma amongst the crowd of people, he knows exactly where to look- the smallest and quietest corner the other boy can get to. Kuroo often finds Kenma leaning up against the wall in this quiet corner with his eyes closed, flexing his fingers to dig his nails deeper into his palms, his breaths deep and steady.

In these moments, Kuroo knows that he can quietly sit himself beside the other boy, bumping his shoulder, pressing their thighs together, and sometimes Kenma leans against him, half-blond head resting on his arm, never changing the steady in-and-out pace of his breath. Kuroo can then pry the smaller boy's fist open and intertwine their fingers, letting Kenma squeeze his hand to save his own palms from the abuse they receive, from more small scars from marking the skin there (which Kuroo can see if Kenma's palms hit the light just so).

Their teammates sometimes notice when their captain and setter disappear, but they never say anything and if the two of them come back together, Kuroo's hand resting lightly against Kenma's back, they just give small, understanding smiles. His hand usually remains on Kenma's back for the rest of the night to give the younger boy something else to focus on, making the noise and the crowds a little more bearable. If Kuroo comes back alone, their eyes avert to the floor in understanding and stop the more oblivious parties such as Hinata or Haruki asking loudly after Nekoma's setter.

The idea that Kuroo's perfect is laughable. This image that some people have of him as a noble and selfless being taking care of this poor and broken creature is so far from the truth it hurts. Kuroo is a little violent and little angry at times, he can be impulsive, goofy and, on some of his worst days, a bit manipulative.

And he's terrified to the core of becoming like his father who yells and drinks and throws hateful words at him and his mother, who makes his home feel like a confine, like a prison cell that Kuroo cannot wait to escape rather than a safe and warm place that families and homes are supposed to be.

As kids, he often calls Kenma after a particularly bad fight and he asks the other boy to meet him, voice quivering slightly over the line and saying nothing of what transpired or how he feels. Kenma, perceptive even at such a young age, the difficult to socialize Kenma knows immediately what has happened and drops everything to be at Kuroo's side. They sit in empty parking lots, on swings, on the curbs of quiet streets, sometimes in silence and sometimes Kenma talks quietly about a new video game he started or about a class he had that day until Kuroo can't hold it back anymore and starts to cry. Without missing a beat, Kenma wraps his arm around the other boy and draws him closer and hugs him tightly, letting Kuroo cry it out and then hiccup into his neck after the tears have dried. More often than not, they go back to Kenma's house and Kenma wraps his small body around Kuroo's and rubs soothing circles into his back until the older boy calms down.

"I hate him," Kuroo whispers sometimes, "I hate him so much." and "I'm so scared I'll become like him. I never want to become like him."

And Kenma kisses the crown of his head and murmurs reassurances in the same hushed tone.

"You won't, Kuro. You won't, I promise."

Sometimes Kenma's mind wanders to places Kuroo can't follow- his tirelessly keen eyes glaze over while his responses become non-committal and dismissive. Kenma could be sitting at a diner with the rest of the volleyball team or he could be slouched against the frame of Kuroo's bed, playing some video game when he'll suddenly stop contributing to the conversation or put his game counsel down and just stare into space, unable to acknowledge whatever is in front of him. All Kuroo can do in these situations is slowly rub at the small of his back or pull his head into his own lap and card his fingers through the other boy's hair until he comes back, blinking a couple of times to refocus on whoever is talking or picking his game console back up and continuing to play, head still resting in Kuroo's lap.

Kuroo is 14 when his dad finally stops terrorizing him and his mom and leaves for good and Kuroo knows he should be happy, but instead he punches a wall and breaks his hand.

"I don't know why I'm so angry," he tells Kenma after getting back from the hospital, right hand heavy with the new cast. They sit on Kuroo's bed and Kenma has already started doodling on the fiberglass coating, his still-black hair hanging like a curtain over his face. "I'm relieved, but also so angry."

Kenma looks up at him from his hunched position over the other boy's arm, left hand still cradling the cast gently. "That's okay. You have the right to be angry, you know."

"He was such a piece of shit," Kuroo spits, voice breaking, "such a coward." Kenma hums in agreement and lets the other boy continue his rant.

Before Kenma leaves that night, he kisses Kuroo's forehead with all the gentleness he can muster and says, "Don't waste too much of your energy on that man." Kenma runs his fingers through the other boy's untamed mane, finally letting his palm rest at the back of his head, where the hair is cropped short, "He doesn't deserve a single one of your thoughts from now on. And you deserve so much better. You deserve so much happiness, Kuro." Butterflies flutter in Kuroo's stomach at the contact, all those feelings already rooted deep and starting to bud inside of him. It will be a couple of years yet before he can truly make sense of them.

There are times Kenma walks out of his house with dark bags under his eyes, and Kuroo knows just how much sleep he's had the night before as the other boy's eyelids droop over golden eyes and he barely pays any mind to which direction he's heading. It sometimes takes a few days of this before Kuroo shows up at Kenma's house at night and curls up beside him in bed. They spend half the night in hushed conversation or they play games together or they read one of Kuroo's new manga together, but they both end up falling asleep eventually.

Sure, Kuroo loses some sleep, but to him it is more than worth it to see his best friend a little more alert the following day.

Try as he might, Kuroo has a hard time staying out of trouble, enough so that he sometimes comes home with black eyes and bruised knuckles and a bloody lip, enough so to get himself suspended a couple of times. When his mother sees him like that, she frowns and shuts the door to her room and refuses to come out, even with Kuroo's prompting, no longer able to bear witness to any sort of violence. These fights are usually over the stupidest things: a snide remark, an unkind glance, but even afterwards, Kuroo paces in his room with so much pent up frustration and energy, fingers still strumming, itching to throw another punch.

Kenma comes into his room sometimes and watches Kuroo pace back and forth.

"What am I even doing?" Kuroo mumbles over and over and over.

"You're being an idiot." Kenma says simply.

In some of his darker moments, Kuroo comes sit beside his best friend and clutches at his head. "D'you think this is how he was like when he was younger?"

And Kenma knows exactly who he is talking about and raises a gentle hand to the larger boy's back, drawing comforting circles in a familiar gesture that never fails to calm him down.

"Stop worrying so much about him. You're your own person. You're a great person." And maybe the two of them are too young to really comprehend the cycles of anger and abuse but those words comfort Kuroo more than he is able to comprehend.

It's in Kenma's first year of high school when Kuroo has a particularly bad fight with one of the third years on his volleyball team. He's banned from the team practices for an entire week and is lucky to not have been banned from club sports entirely. He's lying on his bed brooding when the door slams open and Kenma stalks in with an uncharacteristically heavy frown marring his brow. Kuroo sits up immediately, alarmed to see such an expression on his best friend's usually stoic face.

"Kenma, what's-"

"You're an idiot." the words spill like acid from Kenma's mouth. "You could have been kicked off the team, you know."

Kuroo crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. "There's no way in hell you can make me regret that. He deserved it."

Kenma groans and presses his palms to his eyes. "Dammit, Kuro, who cares if he deserved it? You don't deserve getting kicked off the team just for the sake of punching some asshole."

Kuroo clicks his tongue and turns his head away to look out the window. "I refuse to regret my decision."

Kenma is silent for a minute and then comes to sit at the edge of his best friend's bed.

"Kuro, I know the fight was about me." Kuroo whips his head around to face the other boy, speechless. Though, really, he should have known- with how consistently observant Kenma is. "Didn't you tell me at the beginning of the year just to stick it out?" Kenma continues, leaning towards the other boy, meeting his eyes. "Why can't you do the same?"

Kuroo sighs and moves forward to rest his forehead on Kenma's shoulder.

"You're right. I'm sorry," he murmurs, burying his nose in crook of the other boy's neck, "I just- I hate how those assholes talk about you. Like you're not the best thing that's happened to this team in forever."

The younger boy huffs in laughter and rests his check against Kuroo's head.

"I appreciate it Kuro, I really do. Just… in this case, just leave it alone. It's not worth all the trouble. And it's really not worth you getting kicked off the team for. What would be the point in that?"

Kuroo hums into Kenma's neck and snakes his hand around the other boy's torso, dragging him down to lie on the bed. The way that Kenma doesn't even hesitate to move closer brings back those familiar butterflies into the pit of his stomach, a feeling that Kuroo has finally come to understand the significance of. He ignores the way said butterflies are practically jumping out of his throat and curls his fingers more tightly into Kema's side.

Kema jumps slightly and laughs. "That tickles," he murmurs and breaks contact to sit up and search through his schoolbag, leaving the other boy's hand to drift back down and rest on the bed.

He brings out a crumpled piece of paper and hands it to Kuroo.

Kuroo raises an eyebrow at its contents: an advertisement for a kickboxing class at a nearby gym.

"I just thought it would be good for you," Kenma says, fidgeting with his fingers.

And that's how Kuroo ends up kickboxing twice a week after volleyball practice. He's never as serious about it as he is about volleyball and it never becomes anything more than recreational to him, but he does notice how few people he's had the urge to punch since starting. Though he still has to resist socking the third year middle blocker in the jaw- that guy is just an asshole.

Kuroo isn't born knowing how to handle Kenma's moods, which emerge when he's eleven and don't let up afterwards. It takes Kuroo a great deal of patience and his own Kenma-centric finely honed observational skills to being to understand. There are fights and misunderstandings where Kuroo storms off in frustration from an unresponsive Kenma, where it takes days for them to reconcile and it takes Kuroo months and years to understand exactly what is at the core of all of this chaos.

It's not chaos all the time, though. These episodes come and go periodically; sometimes Kenma is better and sometimes Kenma is worse (though, as Kenma enters high school, he seems to get progressively worse) and Kuroo's come to understand that there's nothing that either of them can do other than ride it out and make sure to come out in one piece on the other side. He's learned that it's not so much about curing it as it is about managing it.

"It's like a shadow," Kenma says once, on one of his better weeks when he can look at things more objectively, "like my own shadow. It will always be there to some extent." he pauses then, looking out of the window of the small coffee shop they are sitting at, homework sprawled out in front of them. "The whole point, I think, is to make it as small as possible, to a point where it doesn't impact your day to day life anymore- so you're not jumping at every corner because this shadow is distorting everything around you."

Sometimes the shadow grows impossibly long and Kenma won't leave his room for days, staying home sick from school and missing volleyball practice. Kuroo knows when to leave him alone and when to barge in to Kenma's room and fit his body against the curled-up form of his best friend, to grab him tight and bury his nose into the crook of Kenma's neck. Kenma smells of sweat and sometimes of tears and Kuroo puts his lips to Kenma's shoulder and silently mouths out rhythms and beats that come to his mind. The two boys usually find themselves falling asleep, Kenma's hands fisted into Kuroo's shirt, Kuroo's broad hands spanning the entirety of Kenma's lower back.

It hurts to see Kenma in such obvious, almost physical pain during these episodes. It hurts when Kenma flinches during practice as the ball comes in contact with his palms, tender not from striking it too hard but because there are new nail imprints in his palms, even though his fingernails are blunt and short. It hurts to see how, even though they mean their best, Kenma's parents have almost no idea how to help their son in these times and instead interact with him like they're afraid of breaking him. This creates an unnecessary barrier between them- another layer between him and the rest of the world Kenma feels he cannot breach.

The worst are the times where Kenma asks through a flash in his eyes and a crease in his browwhy are you still here? Why haven't you left yet?
They're experts in reading each other and so he answers by putting his nose and lips to the crown of the other boy's head. Don't be an idiot, he says by gently bringing Kenma down onto the bed beside him, bringing their bodies close together. Because I love you. Can't you see that? he says by running his hands up and down the other boy's arms, over his shoulders and to his back, peppering his hair and forehead and cheeks with light kisses.

"You don't have to stay just because you want to have sex with me." Kenma whispers once on an uncharacteristically cold August day of Kuroo's third year in high school, in the eye of a hurricane, when the shadow looms so large it starts playing tricks on them, making it seem like its not even there. He says this after an hour of silence, of the two boys under the blanket, of Kuroo's chest pressed against Kenma's back, of Kuroo's fingertips running up and down Kenma's sides in comfort.

Kuroo pauses at the comment, leaning over Kenma's shoulder to see his face, careful to keep his nose from brushing the other boy's cheek. Kenma barely notices the gesture, eyes fixed blankly to a spot on the wall.

"Is that what you really think, Kenma?" he murmurs, voice steady, refusing to betray the spike of anxiety in his chest. Though, really, he isn't all that surprised that Kenma has caught onto it, as in-tune as they are with each other, as good of an analyst as Kenma is.

When Kenma doesn't answer, Kuroo shifts onto his back, and pushes at the smaller boy's shoulder, so he mirrors Kuroo's movement. Kenma's eyes do not move and he is still staring blankly ahead, now to his ceiling, eyes tired and a little glassy.

He's spectacular at observation, but, Kuroo thinks as he gathers a breath to speak, he can also be spectacularly blind about the most obvious things.
"You think I'm here with you right now because I want to sleep with you?"

Instead of responding, Kenma's brows crease, he hunches his shoulders and grips at his forearms, knuckles turning white at the pressure.

Kuroo quietly exhales a breath he doesn't realize he was holding and rests his forehead against Kenma's tensed shoulder.

"Look, I'm not going to lie to you. I think I'm a little bit in love with you, and yes, that does include wanting to sleep with you," the older boy starts after the silence begins to stretch, his stomach turning at his honesty, a part of his brain screaming at him to just shut up and leave it alone, to not make it any worse. It's one thing for Kenma to notice and for Kuroo to realize that Kenma's noticed, but it's still incredibly nerve-wracking to verbalize it, to put the worlds out into the universe. "But…" he begins after another pause, keeping his voice steady, he lifts himself up and props himself up by his elbow, letting his head rest in his hand to better see his best friend's eyes which are still fixed on the ceiling. "But that doesn't mean I don't love you. I love you and you're my best friend and all of that comes so far ahead of being in love with you and wanting to sleep with you."

As nervous as Kuroo is verbalizing all of this, Kenma is his best friend and probably the most important person in his life (and hey, who knows, maybe even the love of his life) and he isn't about to lie to him about something as significant as this.

Kenma remains frozen on his back, fingertips leaving red marks where they're gripping his skin, but his golden eyes shift to meet Kuroo's brown ones and after a couple of ragged breaths, tears start to gather and run down his cheeks to his neck, pooling at his collarbones. He then releases the tight grip on his forearms and brings the base of his palms to press at his eyes and inhales sharply before curling himself up into a little ball and falling to his side again. But this time, he falls towards Kuroo, his knees tucked up and head pushing into the older boy's chest. And Kuroo gathers Kenma in his arms and holds him tight and he can't help but cry as well.

Kuroo typically wakes up first the morning after one of these episodes, curled up around the other boy, legs intertwined and he usually spends the better part of an hour just running his fingertips lightly through Kenma's hair, down his back, across his shoulder blades, over his arms, watching the small movements Kenma's face makes in sleep. This time though, Kenma's already awake and drawing small circles into Kuroo's forearms with his fingertips, head nestled in the crook of the larger boy's neck.

"Hey," Kuroo murmurs, wanting to preserve the atmosphere and shifts one of his hands to rest at Kenma's side, his thumb mimicking the small circles Kenma's own fingers are making.

"I'm sorry," Kenma murmurs in the same soft tone, words vibrating through the boy pressed against him, breath hot against Kuroo's collarbone. Kenma doesn't crane his neck to look up at his companion, still tired and a little worn out and all he can manage right now. "I'm sorry for saying that yesterday. I knew that what I was saying wasn't true." Kuroo brings one of his hands to Kenma's head to run his fingers through the half-blond hair. "I'm sorry for trying to use that against you."

After a few quiet moments of twining his fingers through the younger boy's hair, with the sunlight filtering into the room through the window by the bed, Kuroo draws a breath to speak.

"It's okay," he says, brushing his lips against Kenma's temple, "I'll tell you all of that stuff as many times as you need to hear it."

Kenma relaxes against him, the tension leaving his body, and he releases the breath he was holding.

"Besides," the older boy starts again, pulling away and stretching his lips in a smile so frail that it betrays the flutter of nervousness in his stomach for bringing this subject up again, "at least you addressed that elephant in the room. I figured you'd probably noticed by now."

"It was a small elephant."

"Huh."

"A baby elephant."

"Elephants are assholes either way."

And both of them start to laugh.

The thing is, Kuroo is actually really, really smart. A lot of people have trouble believing it, though, because he's the kind of guy that gets into fights and is a bit of a troublemaker and the class clown. Because of these 'character flaws' (a phrase taken directly from Kuroo's last repot card), most people don't really expect him to be good at school, so Kuroo has trouble expecting any sort of academic excellence from himself. But Kenma has known him since before the smoking in parking lots and the weekday hangovers and suspensions, so Kenma makes a point of bringing his schoolbag whenever he comes over to make sure that they both do their homework. Kenma makes a point of bringing books for Kuroo to read until Kuroo is practically inhaling them, reading so much that he dries up Kenma's list of recommendations and in turn starts suggesting books to Kenma instead. The two of them curled up together, Kenma playing video games and Kuroo on his third book of the week becomes a common occurrence.

Kenma makes a point of coming to Kuroo with any schoolwork questions and makes it clear how smart he thinks the older boy is. And it really does help Kuroo gain more confidence in his own abilities when Kenma's eyes light up in understanding and he smiles up at him and says, "Thanks. That makes so much more sense now. You're so much better at explaining it than my teacher."

Kuroo knows if he tells anyone else about which university he wants to attend, they will look at him with disbelief and think he's joking. But he tells Kenma instead, one night in late September, out of the blue as they're doing homework on Kenma's bed.

"I want to go to Tokodai. For engineering."

Kenma's head snaps up and his eyes widen briefly before a warm smile spreads itself over his face.

"That's amazing. I'm really happy for you."

Kuroo rubs at the back of his head and looks to his lap. "It's a long shot, though. I don't even know if it's worth trying."

"Kuro…" Something in his voice makes Kuroo look back up and he finds Kenma's face is exactly three centimeters away from his.

The younger boy presses their foreheads together and places both hands firmly on his shoulders. "You're the smartest person I know."

When their eyes meet Kuroo struggles not to cry because he had never realized how much he needs some to just believe in him.

"I love you so much," he whispers into their shared space before he can even stop himself, before he can even be afraid of making Kenma uncomfortable.
But Kenma doesn't pull away or close off or anything, he just smiles that warm smile, the one he doesn't show to anyone else, and buries his face in the crook of Kuroo's neck, hugging him tightly.

Give me just a little more time. I promise I'll get there, the grip says.

Thank you, and Take all the time in the world, say Kuroo's arms as they return the hug with equal strength.

After that, whenever Kenma comes over, he does it with his homework already done and instead spends his time helping Kuroo prepare for his application and for his entrance exam, doing everything from proofreading his essays to timing math drills to helping him make flash cards of important English terms.

"My father would never believe that I'm seriously trying to get into one of the best universities in Japan." Kuroo says during a break from one of their study sessions. The two of them are sitting on Kenma's bedroom floor, all of Kuroo's prep books scattered around them. As Kuroo speaks, Kenma looks up from his phone to the older boy. "He'd always be the first one to tell me that I'd never amount to anything." Kenma blinks once but stays silent, urging him to continue. "Even if he'll never know, I really want to prove him wrong. For my own sake." He grips at the hem of his t-shirt but does not look away from his best friend. "I want to be a different person than what he expected me to be."

Kenma crawls on all fours over to Kuroo's side and sits down beside him. He detangles Kuroo's hand from the hem of his shirt and intertwines their fingers, leaning in to kiss Kuroo's jaw before resting his head on the older boy's shoulder. Kuroo, in turn, rests his cheek on Kenma's head. They stay like that until they have to get back to studying.

He gets the thick envelope in late winter. After glaring at it for a full minute he decides just to go for it and rips the packaging to see the letter inside.
The first person he tells isn't his mom or any of his teachers: it's Kenma. He runs right over to his house, knocks on his door and tries not to laugh or cry when he shows him the acceptance and then settles for something else entirely as he picks the younger boy up and spins him around.

And Kenma laughs and laughs and hugs him tighter in the spin and, for the first time in a very long time, doesn't care if anyone else sees or what they will think if they do.

A lot of Kuroo's classmates are dumbfounded that he got into such a prestigious university, but now, instead of internalizing it or letting their surprise cast any doubts he just rolls his eyes and smiles and looks forward to the future.

People always warn him that the two of them are too close, that Kenma is making him a shut in, that he should hang out with other people that are tall and outgoing and athletic. People sometime ask, with a false sense of intimacy- why do you do this? It seems like so much trouble to be friends with him. He seems like such a handful, like such a downer. Why do you bother? What do you even get out of it?

In a similar fashion, Kuroo knows what people tell Kenma, even though the other boy never brings it up. They tell Kenma to stay away from him, that he's trouble and that his life is going nowhere, that Kenma is too bright and too good to be hanging around with such a menace. He hears Kenma's teachers whisper to him things like he's such a bad influence. You don't want to risk your chances of getting into a top school because you hang around such a hoodlum, do you? While their neighbors whisper to each other, behind his back as he's walking by. He's so violent, they say, he'll be just like his father. He'll never amount to anything.

People always make these assumptions about their relationship- how much trouble they're causing each other, how they're bringing each other down, how they're completely mismatched. Kuroo wants to laugh in their faces not only because they are completely wrong and clearly don't know a thing about their relationship but also because that's not how love works.

He can't just stop loving someone because of their imperfections, their humanity and their vulnerabilities. Sure, he doesn't always understand this thing that Kenma is fighting against, this battle he's waging, but this battle is a part of him and Kuroo loves all of him and is ready to take his hand and fight these battles with him. How boring it would be to love someone perfect, someone who can't understand struggle and vulnerability. It is through his own vulnerability and his own demons that Kenma can understand Kuroo in a way no one else does.

And maybe that's what saves Kuroo in the end.

All of these people that judge the two of them don't see the way that Kenma's eyes light up whenever he gets excited about a new video game, or when he watches Hinata spike one of Kageyama's tosses. They don't see the gentleness with which Kuroo's fingers brush across Kenma's temple as he dozes off on the taller boy's shoulder. They don't see how horribly allergic Kuroo actually is to cats, but bears their monthly volunteer sessions at the local animal shelter for the rest of the team, because hey, its their mascot and everyone else absolutely loves the furry creatures. They don't see how Kenma always has allergy medicine for Kuroo during those days because he knows that the older boy will, without a doubt, forget some. They don't see how Kenma showers their team members quietly with encouragement when they need it the most, when they're trying so hard to hide their own weaknesses or self-doubt. They don't see how Kuroo brings Kenma to tears with his ridiculous shenanigans, nor do they know that Kuroo sometimes intentionally does stupid things just to make Kenma laugh. They don't see how that laugh sometimes makes Kuroo's stomach jump to his throat because he swears that he's never seen anything more beautiful.

Those people don't see the look in Kenma's eyes the first time he presses his lips to Kuroo's, strong and determined and so full of love, eliminating any doubt from Kuroo's mind that Kenma is just trying to appease him.

Though, maybe, that last one is just for him and Kenma to see.

There is a picture of the two of them on Kuroo's dorm room wall where they are sitting on a park bench, turned towards each other. The day's final rays of sunshine are hitting Kenma's face, illuminating his hair in a halo. Kuroo is laughing, eyes crinkling at the corners while Kenma's mouth is stretched into that warm, secret smile of his, the one just for Kuroo, and they are so wrapped up in each other that they are completely unaware of the camera. The picture is taken only a month before Kuroo's classes officially begin, before he officially moves out of his mother's house, half of his belongings packed in boxes, half still scattered around his room that his mother swears to preserve just the way it is.

The volleyball team is having its last outing of the year to say goodbye to the departing third-years. Yaku just got a vintage Polaroid camera from his parents and is eager to use it, so he takes candid photos the entire day, much to the exasperation of rest of the team. He just happens to capture that moment between Kenma and Kuroo, as the day is winding down, unaware until after he's taken the photo that he's probably intruding on an intimate moment. He approaches Kuroo afterwards to give him the photo, saying that it doesn't feel right for the picture to be in anyone else's hands. In the picture the two of them look like a pair of average teenagers, maybe a little too comfortable in each other's space, enjoying a quiet spring evening.

Kuroo loves the picture because it's one of the few good ones he has of the stubbornly camera-shy Kenma, but it also serves as a reminder of how much it took them to get to that point. Through all of the tears and fights and self-doubt, that seed that they nurtured since their childhood has grown into this large and sturdy tree that can now shelter them from any storm.

Kuroo knows that Kenma is still haunted by those shadows and that they will probably stretch long once more, and he knows that he still needs to go to kickboxing and will probably face crippling self-doubt at some point again. But it's okay because he's young and in love and he finally feels like he has a bright future ahead of him and, at least for now, that makes him feel invincible.

notes:

The oxford comma and I have a complicated relationship.

Un-beta'd so I apologize for any glaring grammatical errors! Also, I'm not quite familiar with how the Japanese school system and university application process really works, and I'm not sure how much a quick google search helped, so sorry for the inevitable inaccuracies D:

Codependent KuroKen is codependent. But hear me out: they're young! Their lives full of hardship! What else can they do but lean on each other through all of it?