The day started like any other. She stirred awake–later than usual, as there was no school she had to rush off to–with a dry mouth and mind still disoriented from the haze of sleep. She stuffed her feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers and shuffled her way downstairs, her mother immediately handing her her breakfast.

It was a routine for the Kozume's, always attempting to have all of their meals together as a family. Of course, Kenma didn't always abide by that rule. She often skipped meals–specifically breakfast–when she didn't feel the need to, or was "too busy". (Too busy, meaning when she was too preoccupied with sleeping in. "Important", she says.)

The faint sound of laughter echoed from somewhere outside, most likely the neighborhood children enjoying their day off in the warm weather. Kenma's father set his chopsticks down against his plate audibly, wiping at his face with a napkin.

"Say…why don't you go play out with the neighborhood kids? It's not too sunny outside today." He encouraged, looking hopeful. Kenma chewed on her mouthful of rice, blinking over at him blankly; not one of the words he had spoken even slightly appealed to her. He shifted, "We'll even let you go down to the park…?"

"No thanks," She swallowed her food, pushing her hair slightly out of her face. It was getting longer, she observed. And darker. "I don't know them. I'm good with staying here."

Her mother frowned, her parents sharing a look between them that she pretended not to see. Kenma finished off the rest of her breakfast without batting an eye. "Kuroo-san said that Teturou-kun is going to come by after lunch. I hope you're being welcoming to him. Poor boy." Her mother stated, muttering the last words more to herself as she put a hand to her heart. Kenma perked up slightly in her seat at that.

"He's coming over again?" She asked, interest piqued. After all, Kuroo wasn't bad company. "And of course I'm being nice…" She huffed, setting her plate off to the side.

Kuroo had been coming over to the Kozume's more often as they got more comfortable with their family, seeing as the boy's father and grandparents weren't home all of the time to watch him. She guessed she could consider the–physically–older boy as a friend, of sorts. He was the only one she hung out with that was her own age, essentially.

Quite convenient that they happened to be direct next door neighbors, too.

"He's just… shy. Make sure you're letting him voice what he wants to do, too." Kenma's father advised, smiling. She nodded, taking his words into consideration. They had had a routine going. They would play video games in her room for hours, which she thought was probably the only "fun" thing they could possibly do. Nothing else really enticed her, and Kuroo hadn't exactly spoken up against the video games, either.

(But she knew–if she was to ask–exactly what his answer would be. She knew what he wanted to do.

She would see it when she passed her bedroom window, the window that faced his own. She could see the posters that littered his walls when he had his blinds drawn open, depicting athletes soaring in the air with their arm swung high. She could see the many unmistakable pairs of athletic sneakers lined up by his door. She saw the volleyball sitting on his bed, worn and dirty from constant abuse.

She knew what he wanted.)

Kenma took a shallow breath, accepting. In all her dramatics, she knew it was about time she faced it.

(It was about time she finally faced reality instead of delaying it.)

"Okay, I will."

Kuroo eagerly sprinted out of the door at the words she uttered halfway through their vs. match, abandoning the controller on the floor beside Kenma's bed in his haste. She sighed, beginning to power off all of her electronics, as the two of them probably wouldn't be using them any more today. She mentally began to prepare herself for the physical exertion she was sure she would have to affront.

("Is there something else you wanna play? We play this every time." Kenma had asked with faux innocence, steeling herself in her position; expecting. Kuroo looked up at her, eyes shining in a way that looked foreign on his young features.

She had never seen him look so happy.)

The thundering footsteps had made their way back up to Kenma's room by the time she pulled her trainers out from her closet and Kuroo nervously peaked through the door, breathing heavily from running all the way to his house and back in such a short amount of time. He held up the familiar green and white ball in front of him, a silent offer with an unsure smile.

Kenma tried not to pull a face.

("Kozume-san! Wanna join?" The boys in her class had asked, huddled in a group in the courtyard; sun beating down on their necks as they tossed and bumped around a volleyball. She looked up at the sun, at the concrete. She tugged on her jacket's sleeves.

She walked back inside without giving an answer. She could delay it a little longer.)

Truthfully, she hadn't really seen–or interacted with–a volleyball this closely in a while. She hadn't exactly been avoiding them (lies); just, she tried not to think about them too often. Memories of the feeling of the ball in her palm were faint, somewhere in the back of her mind; but they were there. She knew what it felt like to serve it. She knew how to receive it. She knew the rules.

(Memories of another life that wasn't this one faded and faded until they were just that. Memories. Distant, unreachable.)

"Volleyball?" Kenma asked her neighbor, even though it was obvious what Kuroo was asking. He nodded, twisting the ball in between his hands. He always seemed to be fiddling with something.

"I just figured…if you wanted to play something else…"

"Okay. We can go to the park down the block."

A beat. Kuroo stared as if he hadn't expected Kenma to comply so easily. She felt stupid.

"The one by the water?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, okay."

"My dad said we could go there." Kenma explained with a shrug as the two headed downstairs in the quiet house, awkwardly slipping on their shoes in silence. They began the short trek to the edge of the neighborhood, walking side by side on the empty road; void of any small talk conversation. As of now, neither of them were comfortable enough for such.

(It was weird, seeing the boy like this. He was young, shy; not at all how she knew–expected him to be.

But she had to remind herself, she didn't yet truly know him. She knew of a copy. Of fiction. This here was real.)

The large grass clearing next to the bridge made itself noticeable as they walked over the hill, and Kuroo quickly made pace over towards it. Kenma continued her leisurely walk, not wanting to waste away her limited energy just yet. The weather was nice, thankfully; as it allowed her to keep her sweatshirt on without much problem. Though, she rolled her sleeves up to her elbows so they wouldn't much hinder her movements.

"Have you ever played, you know…volleyball before?" Tetsurou asked softly, curiously, dribbling the ball on the damp grass. It was slightly muddy in the grassless areas around the clearing, and the duo wordlessly avoided the shallow puddles. Kenma pondered how to answer his question.

"No." A lie. Well, not a complete one. She hadn't so much as touched a volleyball as Kozume Kenma, nevertheless played any kind of sport. She blamed her small body for the reason of not trying. (But, she had. She had played. She had experience. A body that was no more, worn with age; red littered forearms and stinging palms. A distant memory.)

"I can teach you." The boy puffed out his chest and she shrugged, agreeing. He demonstrated the basic stance of receiving and had her throw it towards him a few times, and he showed her where to let the ball hit on her forearms. He smiled at her awkward attempt at the half squat stance, "Okay, your turn!"

Kuroo tossed the volleyball at her and Kenma tried to put her arms together, bracing for the impact. She wasn't quick enough to get completely under it, sending the ball off to the side and rolling away in the grass. She stared down at her small arms, cursing herself for being a child with child motor skills and child limbs that didn't work in the way she wanted them to. She could only describe it as having only fifty percent of the control she once had before.

"That was really close! You just have to make sure it hits here…" Kuroo animatedly gave her advice and she stared, incredulous. His voice was loud, comfortable. It was as if all of his shyness and hesitance had melted away the second the sport was brought in. Like he radiated it. Lived it.

(She truly envied the pure love he had towards volleyball.)

They played for what felt like hours; what possibly could have been. They tossed back and forth to each other, not giving up even when the ball would practically fly away from them. It had ended up even splashing into the mud puddles around the park more than once, leaving Kenma and Kuroo a guffawing mess at the sight. In all honesty, she found herself enjoying it. Enjoying Kuroo's presence. Uncovering sides to him she hadn't previously seen–sides that had been locked away by childlike introversion.

"Pffft–" The spiky haired boy pointed at her clothes, littered with splatters of mud and striped with grass stains, his upper body shaking with mirth. Kenma looked down at herself and gaped, not having realized just how dirty she had gotten over the course of their outing. She pointed an accusing finger back at his own muddy clothes and felt herself smirk.

"Just look at yourself!"

They giggled as they collected the dirtied volleyball, slowly making their way out of the park, Kuroo absentmindedly wiping the ball off onto his shorts in an attempt to clean it. Chatter concerning anything and everything flowed between the two easily compared to before, a friendship already firmly planting itself in a way only children their age could pull off.

"You're a lot more talkative now." Kenma spoke her thoughts aloud, kicking the loose pieces of gravel on the road beneath her, watching as one skipped its way across the street. Kuroo's ears went red and he stuttered. It was quite a humorous sight.

"A–am I?" A nod, "well, you're just the same…"

"'Cause I wasn't that quiet to begin with." She shrugged, stuffing her red spotted hands back into her pockets.

"Yeah." He fiddled with the volleyball and Kenma stared at it.

"But, why don't you play with someone who actually knows what they're doing with volleyball?" She asked, and she was genuinely curious. He seemed plenty happy to play with her even though there were kids far better than her at it. She was definitely dull in comparison. "It's probably super boring with me."

Kuroo shook his head violently, almost seeming offended for her at her own words. "Not at all, really! You're a fast learner with everything I showed you, and you're a pretty smart guy." He encouraged. Kenma felt her brain short circuit. "I was in a team a while back, but since we moved…not anymore."

He glanced behind him with a quizzical look as she stopped dead in her tracks, her heart beating impossibly fast against its permanent confines. She must have just misheard the boy, right? He possibly could have just gotten his words mixed up, too. She was definitely overreacting.

(Something stirred.)

"Wait…what did you say?" She asked as she stared straight ahead, desperate for an answer, yet voice monotone. Kuroo didn't seem to catch onto the shift; oblivious.

"I'm not in a team anymore?" He replied, shrugging.

A shake of the head, "No, before that." Surely she had heard the wrong thing.

"That you're a smart guy?" Kuroo provided with a hum of remembrance, eyes squinting slightly.

Nope, she most positively heard him right.

(And never had Kenma wished so much to be proven wrong.)

"So anyways, are you free this…"

She droned Kuroo's words out subconsciously as she wracked her brain for answers, solutions. Anything and everything that could possibly salvage her situation. Anything to explain it. How? Why? Good lord, and she finally thought she had things under control for once.

She wondered if this was the universe's way of trying not to stray too far from what "should'vebeen". A pull back towards the life set in stone for Kozume Kenma. It almost seems like a desperate attempt at forcing her to be what she is not. What Kozume Kenma is not. At least, not anymore. Maybe–in another universe–Kozume Kenma was once male; but that's not who she was. She was an anomaly. But, of course, life just had to screw with her at least once more–and she knew it wouldn't be the last time, either.

Life always seemed to get the last laugh whenever it came to her.

(Kuroo Tetsurou believed that she, Kozume Kenma, was of the same gender as he was.

And Kenma truly didn't have a clue on how to tell him otherwise. Technically, she had never actually told him that she was a girl. It was sort of never brought up in the first place. But was it necessarily a bad thing? Her head hurt just thinking about it.)

All in all, Kenma was absolutely fucked.

(Later that night, after the two children said their goodbyes and headed inside their respective homes, Kenma ignoring the curious questions from her parents at the sight of her disheveled appearance; she lay in her bed, watching the swirling light dance across the ceiling with comforting familiarity and she planned.

Cause the universe knew she was most definitely going to need one.)

(a/n)

i apologize for the sporadic updates, as i have college classes that take up most of my time/attention. but here is the third chapter!

thank you to all who have read so far (there's more than i thought lol). i really appreciate the favorites and follows! please leave any and all reviews/comments that come to mind and i will be glad to hear/answer them.

(my cat is laying on my keyboard. she makes it so hard for me to get things done sometimes smh.)