kurokenmonth prompt: distance
Five centimetres.
That is the distance between Kuroo's hand and yours.
Never closer, never farther, always just five centimetres apart. Close enough to reach out and touch, yet far enough to stay still and wish upon a star. That's the way it's always been, and the way it should be.
Just five centimetres.
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The first time you notice the distance, you were ten.
Kuroo's been a fixed presence in your life for about four years, barging in one day without warning and armed with a volleyball. You've never had a friend before, always too shy and hiding behind your mother's legs, but somehow this slightly bigger kid with hair even bigger than his golden heart is different, and you're not on your toes because you want to run away, but rather because you want to run after him.
It's after another round of exhausting volleyball, which you're starting to understand takes a lot more effort than just slapping the ball with your palm. Having received one ball too many to the face, you complain to Kuroo to stop, and he complies for once without trying to persuade you to "One more toss, Kenma!" You're both sitting on the grass, under the shade, when you notice.
Kuroo is sprawled out next to you, guzzling water sloppily and noisily. He chatters on about school, about joining a volleyball team together, about dinner, anything. You're scrunched up next to him, but you're not touching.
It's not like you're alarmed or upset that he's not touching you, it's just something you take note of. Kuroo's a physical person, has been ever since he reached out that first day and dragged you by the arm into his backyard to toss the ball around. You've seen him with his friends, roughhousing and highfiving and shoving each other around. He likes to hang his arm around you when he comes up behind you, he tends to ruffle your hair when you point out the obvious, sometimes he leans against you to make you look up from your game. When Kuroo is familiar with someone, he uses physical contact to show it.
This time, however, he sits five centimetres away from you. Barely a hand's width, and yet somehow it feels like a mile. It's not like you think it's a big deal, it probably just happened without any thought at all, and you don't say anything. You doubt Kuroo even noticed.
But you remember. Those five centimetres. They stay with you in the back of your mind, where it's dark and murky and all sorts of tangled, but filled with messy black hair and a crooked smile, something you consider familiar and warm and constant.
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When Kuroo enters high school, you're still stuck in middle school.
You feel more exposed with him gone, even though he's really only just a couple blocks over. But there's no one to sit with at lunch, and your volleyball teammates don't really count as friends. They don't really talk to you without Kuroo there, anyway.
He still walks to school with you part way, and he still invites himself over to talk about his day and play video games and help you with math. You still have to fend off his chopsticks piling more food into your bowl when he stays for dinner and you still end up falling asleep on him in the middle of a movie.
But he talks about his classmates you've never seen, his new teammates you don't know. He still answers your texts with amazing speed, but somehow you feel less inclined to share your thoughts than before. It isn't that he stopped paying attention to you (you don't think that will ever be possible for him-not because you're confident that you matter but because you've both been together for so long, if one of you is missing the other feels it like a phantom limb). Maybe you've been relying on him more than you thought you were.
Sitting on the couch one night, watching an age-old favourite movie, you once again notice the distance between you. His arms are on the back of the couch, leaning back until his long legs are stretched beneath the coffee 're close enough that if you lean your head back just a five centimetres, you'd be on his arm. You're close enough that if you tilt your body just five centimetres, you'd be leaning against his chest. You're close enough that in just five centimetres, you'd be right where you've been all those times before, but for some reason, you can't do it.
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Those five centimetres hang in the back of your mind like clouds waiting to open above. They swing in your dreams, in your daydreams, in your too-early mornings waiting for your phone to be fully charged.
Sometimes you wonder if Kuroo's noticed it yet. Because your best friend might be a lot of things (provocative, mischievous, annoying, stubborn, kind, considerate, loyal) but he isn't dumb. He's always the first to point out your plummeting mood or your growing anxiety and he's always the first to offer you an excuse to leave the party early or just stay home for the day. Eventually, he'll figure things out and notice, and you're not sure you want him to just yet.
Five centimetres. That's all that sits between the things you and Kuroo cannot say and cannot breach just yet.
Sometimes you wish the distance would move. Become greater, become smaller, anything but be stuck frozen, that little yet infinite space between the two of you that you cannot define.
But stay it does. Just five centimetres.
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When you enter high school, the distance appears to shrink, just a little bit.
Kuroo pulls you back into the team spirit, or as much as you can handle, anyway. You, unfortunately, are new blood and are told to do the dirty work. You hate it. You hate it even more than whatever weird atmosphere was hanging between Kuroo and yourself only a couple months ago.
But you stay.
Because, while you're running after stray volleyballs and trying to keep up with a new class full of strangers, you're aware of Kuroo standing next to you on court. You're aware of him waiting for you outside the changerooms, you're aware of him walking home with you, you're aware of the five centimetres between your hand and his as you walk down the street. And, slowly, you begin to think that maybe the distance isn't that far after all.
He doesn't say anything, and you don't either. He still ruffles your hair and bumps your shoulder to gain your attention. And sometimes it feels like he leans against you for a second more than he used to, like he hovers near you for a second longer than he needs to.
Five centimetres. Perhaps, if you could just gather the courage to breach it-
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In your second year of high school, you meet Shouyou.
For the second time in your life, you make a friend of your own accord. Kuroo notices this, and one night he plops right down next to you on your bed to congratulate you. You look away, unsure what the look in his eyes mean. It's only when he stands to head back home to sleep that you realize he was sitting farther than he used to.
You spent the last twelve months ignoring the centimetres between you. He never gave any sign of being aware of the spaces and how they keep shifting, but you don't know if that means he doesn't think of it at all or if he's just hiding what he's thinking. It's only during training camp that you realize the distance is growing again.
You listen to Shouyou babble with his sunny voice about "stupid Bakageyama, he owes me so many meat buns!" and you nod along, because while Karasuno's setter scares you just a bit, you like how animated Shouyou becomes when he's talking about him. Those two are close, perhaps even comparable to how close you were with Kuroo, which is surprising considering Shouyou admitting they barely knew each other. The distance between them, you muse, is maybe three centimetres.
When you look up as a force of habit, your eyes do not catch on a particularly tall and messy bedhead. You're not too worried, because as close to the hip as you two are, you are two different people after all. Yet when it keeps happening throughout the week, Kuroo disappearing with his loud strange-hair buddy and Fukurodani's setter and that tall middle blocker from Karasuno, you stare at the space between yourself and your best friend and you think, It's growing.
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Five centimetres remain between your futon and Kuroo's.
He sleeps on his front (which can't be comfortable, but he does that squashing pillows against his ears) and falls asleep so quickly you're almost envious. Instead, you stay up listening to everybody's steady breathing around you and your eyes find the tip of Kuroo's hair sticking up.
You splay your fingers apart, stretching your hand just off the edge of your futon. In the dark, your eyes trace the distance between your cold fingers and the warmth of your friend sleeping next to you.
Five centimetres never felt so far.
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When you return home, Kuroo is still by your side.
He whistles lightly, carrying his bag over his shoulder and looking ahead. He's always looking ahead. Except when he reaches back to grab hold of your hand to drag you along to whatever great adventure he's set on.
You realize he hasn't grabbed your hand in a long time.
Lifting your eyes away from your phone screen, you glance down. His left hand is empty, swinging gently next to you hip as he walks. You count. Five centimetres. It's so short and it hasn't felt this short since before you left for training camp. You glance back up at Kuroo's face. He's facing the setting sun, all vibrant and loose and so very familiar and you understand that he was never far away. He's been here all along.
You close your eyes. You reach out.
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Five centimetres.
That is the distance between Kuroo's hand and yours.
It's felt closer, and farther, and so very difficult to cross. That's the way it's always been, but slowly, surely, you close the distance.