"Because Page Twelve is Why."
From Jo's Playlist: Back Home by Owl City
Neither Kuroo nor Kenma mentioned Jo's teary eyes during the train ride home.
The boys kept to themselves, leaning their heads together to talk about a game Kenma was playing on a PSP. He seemed glued to the thing. He played it the whole ride to school and seemed just as determined to play the whole time back. Kuroo was no better as he bent his head down to see the screen better.
Jo kept to herself. She switched between different social media apps but had to stop once she saw a photo of Matteo and Bri squished together on a mountain ledge. She liked the picture and closed the app. The train pulled into the station and the doors slid open.
Her phone dinged with a text. She clicked it on, keeping one eye on the phone and the other on the boys.
Hey, can we talk? Bri's text read.
Jo's gut twisted. Maybe later? I have physics homework. She replied. In all honesty, she didn't want to talk to Bri. It wasn't as though she was angry at her friend, she wasn't. But Jo needed more than a few hours to process and feel the hurt that thrummed through her heart.
The sun dipped low behind the houses as Jo followed a step behind Kuroo and Kenma though the neighborhood. They were still going on about Kenma's game, this time discussing what ways to beat the level. Jo tried to tune in, but they were speaking so quickly and using slang she didn't understand that she gave up after a few minutes.
Then, Kenma peeled off to his house, which looked like all the others (tall and thin) right beside Kuroo's.
Kuroo didn't stop at his gate like Jo expected and her steps faltered at her's. She faced him and tilted her head back to look at him in the eye. "Yes?"
Please don't mention the red eyes or visible slouch. Or anything about her general appearance.
"Want to work on physics together?" He asked. "After dinner,"
Well, that wasn't what she was expecting. "Through the window?"
He folded his hands in his slacks pockets. He had changed from his volleyball uniform to his school one after the game, much to Jo's appreciation. They all smelled a tad sour after the matches. "Would that work?"
She nodded and grinned, though it was forced. "Text me whenever you're ready,"
He matched her grin with his own. "Sounds like a plan."
A feeling tugged in her stomach as she closed herself in the house. A feeling she couldn't quite put her finger on. A strange intertwinement of both gratitude and disappointment warring against each other.
"I'm home," Jo called, bracing her hand against the wall to slip off her shoes and pushed them in the corner with her toe. She paused. The house was perfectly still and quiet.
Jo quietly poked her head around. A lamp in the living room was on and the kitchen light was on. A note was propped on the table.
Her mother's loopy cursive writing filled the top in a short, simple message: Went on a walk, be back with groceries.
Jo immediately clicked on her phone and found a playlist, playing it through the crappy speakers. She rummaged through the fridge in search of a carbonated water. She popped the tab of the can and took a sip, focusing on the familiar Italian song playing and the bubbles dancing down her throat.
A silent home was not something Jo found comfort in. Being by herself was not something Jo enjoyed. It was irrational. An irrational anxiety that plagued her as a child. She worked extremely hard to leave behind but still lingered. She couldn't help her shoulders from rising and the hairs on her neck from standing up.
Her body ached for a shower but even that made her skin crawl. Not until she was fully comfortable with the creaks and groans of the wood and plastic of the house adjusting would she strip and get in the bath.
Jo flipped on the hall lights and her room's, flinging her backpack on the floor with a solid thunk and pulling open the bottom drawer of her dresser in search for comfortable clothes.
The song on her phone faded to a soft country twang, one that pulled her back to the dirt roads and tall pines from her summers in America. Evenings spent driving with her brother in his old Chevy truck with the blue paint chipping, the country music he loved (and she despised) blaring through the rolled down windows. He would pull over and they sit in the truck bed to watch the sunset spill across the flat plains, glass coke bottles in their hands and the summer humidity sticking to their bare shoulders.
What she would give for it to be summer and be packing to head to her brother's farmhouse.
Pushing herself off her knees, Jo turned to her window to pull down her shade.
Kuroo's shade was also open. Jo knew she shouldn't peak, but her eyes were moving and analyzing before her brain could stop her.
She couldn't see much from the glare of her overhead light. A single lamp on a nightstand by his bed glowed warmly. The room wasn't messy, but it wasn't clean either. It was lived in.
Textbooks lay open on the desk with stray pieces of paper and pens. More textbooks littered the rugged floor. There was a bookshelf and dresser, with nicknacks she couldn't make out. Under the lamp on the nightstand she could make out a photo frame.
His door flung open and he stalked through.
Jo scrambled back on her bed, heart thrumming in her chest. She took several deep breaths, hoping he hadn't seen her.
She did need to close her shade, though. Mustering the courage and the most innocent expression in case he did see her, Jo scooted to the window.
The long silhouette of Kuroo stretched across his bed. Unable to stop herself, Jo narrowed her eyes to see him clearer.
He seemed to have his head buried under his pillow. In the soft light of the lamp, he appeared so small. Just like last night and that morning, all life had left his lanky body. Leaving a shadow of a boy behind.
Feeling guilty for spying, Jo yanked down the shade. It wasn't her business to pry. He was gracious and didn't pull at her layers, so she would leave his own intact.
They had an interesting setup, but it worked.
Jo sat with her legs crossed on her bed, facing the open window. A plate of pasta on her right, her laptop on her left, and her homework on her lap. A glass of water balanced precariously on the windowsill.
Kuroo was in a much better position than her. He sat at his desk with his own plate of food and drink and his papers scattered everywhere. While she had a much more cramped spot, it was a tidy mess. His, however, was as though a tornado blew through.
"So you would find it like this?" Jo held up her scratch work.
Kuroo leaned forward, eyes squinting. "Yeah, you got it,"
Jo nodded. Tugging at the string of her brother's hoodie that enveloped her, she finished the problem. So far she understood it, but she worried it would sweep over her head before the first exam. But it was more than that. She wanted to learn and understand the subject, not just pass it.
The soft music playing through her speaker suddenly cut out and her phone buzzed with an incoming call.
Matteo's name filled the screen. Immediately, Jo cancelled the call. She typed a quick excuse, trying to ignore the curious glance Kuroo gave her.
"Someone from Italy," she said stiffly.
He nodded, turning back to his work. "A friend?"
Jo stared at the homework that lay in her lap, mocking her. "An ex,"
He hummed and didn't pry.
Jo tried to force her brain to focus on the problem she was trying to crack but couldn't. She couldn't get the image of Bri and Matteo grinning cheekily on the mountain with the endless sky behind them. If they had gotten together just two weeks after her leaving, did that mean he hadn't even taken her seriously to begin with?
She had offered a piece of her heart carelessly. She knew it was going to be a fling. She knew that when he kissed her cheek when they were walking along the back alleys on their way home from school. He was just a boy from an Italian school for foreigners. Their paths would have split when they graduated anyway. He was set on going to Spain to study business and she was to go to America to study whatever that would make her parents proud.
"Jo?" Kuroo asked, snapping her from her spiraling thoughts.
Her head shot up. "Yes?"
He tilted his head, a question pulling at his mouth. "You've been staring at that one problem for a minute now,"
Heat crawled across her collarbones. "Ah, sorry. I got distracted,"
He studied her with those alarmingly bright honey eyes. And then his grin crinkled the edges of his eyes. "Airhead," he said, though not unkindly.
"Nerd," she replied.
He raised a brow. "What was that?"
Jo allowed a sly grin to slip. "What was it you told your teammates before the match? We need to keep moving to keep the blood flowing so we can reach our maximum potential?"
"So that the oxygen can flow," he finished. "It's just science." His pencil started tapping on the frame of his glasses lightly.
"Again, nerd," Jo said firmly.
Kuroo shook his head, trying to appear exasperated but failed when his grin reappeared. It was soft again. Not as gripping like at school. As though the two shared a secret.
Jo found her shoulders relaxing and the tension that had built in her chest easing. The rest of the evening was spent trying to power through the rest of the problems. Kuroo, to her curiosity, was quick to ask for help. Jo preferred to try to crack a problem on her own before collaborating and wasn't afraid to challenge his way of thinking.
"But why that why?" she asked.
"Page twelve says why," he replied, picking up the textbook and pointing at the page.
Jo made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. "But you didn't do it like that,"
He gestured to the book again. "I just figured it out,"
Her irritation grew. "But why, I want to actually understand this." People who were naturally intelligent were simultaneously the dumbest people on the planet. They didn't know how to explain their reasoning, they just did it and typically did it right.
Kuroo set the book down with a thump and ran his hand through his hair. "Give me a minute and I'll try to explain it."
And that was how Jo's evening went until nine. Her pestering him just how exactly and him being unable to explain. Anyone walking outside would hear the sounds of two frustrated kids trying to solve three physics problems.
Jo knew she was being annoying. She expected him to snap at her at some point. But he never did. Only once did annoyance flash across his face but it was gone as soon as it appeared. His Japanese would become too quick for her to understand when he tried to explain concepts, but would catch himself, noticing the pinch between her brows.
When Jo flipped her book closed and stretched her back, Kuroo said, "Study again tomorrow?"
Jo paused mid stretch, her arms raised above her head. "I didn't annoy you too much?" she half teased. She was worried she had pestered him to his limit.
He snorted, tucking his pencil behind his ear like a waitress. "It's making me think about the problem. Besides, it's kinda fun seeing you get so frustrated,"
Jo finished her stretch and let her arms fall down. "Well, I'm glad to be of some entertainment. But tomorrow is Seder. So I don't think I can, but I'll let you know,"
He nodded, looking down at his work in thought. Then his eyes widened and his head shot up. "I won't be able to walk you home,"
Jo waved her hand. "My mom can pick me up. Give me a few more days and I won't be like such a lost puppy." She smiled softly, warmth blooming in her chest. "Thank you for thinking of that,"
"It's my duty as captain to look out for the manager," he said slyly.
Jo rolled her eyes but let the smile on her face remain. "Keep telling yourself that." She reached up, wrapping her fingers around her window. "See you tomorrow?"
He reached up with one hand, mimicking her posture. "Tomorrow."
Together, they shut their windows and drew their blinds, encasing themselves in their own worlds.
In the pitch blackness under her heavy blankets, Jo's chest warmed at the memory of the softening of his sharp edges when he mentioned walking her home. How his honey hued eyes widened and narrowed in a few moments when he realized she would be walking by herself. Almost as though he didn't want her to be alone.
Recognizing the feeling taking root in her heart, Jo dug her fingers in the soil and ripped out the sapling. No. Not now. Not for a while.