Scratch

Chapter 17:

A Fair Share of Firsts

A half hour later, they found themselves sprawled out on the sofa. The kitchen had been cleaned thoroughly - who knew Kuroo enjoyed cleaning? - and the appropriate people had been contacted. Kenma had taken the day off, and Kuroo had called Akaashi again, and they had both decided to curl up on the couch, under a blanket, and watch a movie.

In the spirit of the holidays, they flipped through the channels and ended up watching A Christmas Story. Kenma finally felt himself relaxing, even if it was kind of hard to ignore the warm body next to him. It helped that the cats decided to cuddle as well, at least there was some sense of normalcy.

Every time someone did something utterly ridiculous, Kenma found himself laughing harder than usual. When the kid got his tongue stuck to the frozen telephone pole, he giggled so hard that he snorted. Kenma turned towards his boyfriend and told him, "That's you."

"Oh no, you've figured out my secret," Kuroo teased, "I go around licking telephone poles."

Kenma smiled to himself.

The movie wasn't that long, and they had managed to find a channel where there weren't any commercials. They flipped through the channels again, and it was hard to ignore the amount of couples that were in tv shows, movies, or even the commercials. So much romance, it was overdone and ridiculous, yet Kenma found himself feeling just a little bit left out and irritated. Before anything else, he stood up. Unfortunately, it took the blanket, and Kuroo momentarily mourned the loss of heat, before looking up at his boyfriend with confused interest.

"Let's go ice skating," Kenma announced.

Kuroo stared at him. The expression on his face was somewhere between confused, horrified, and excited. Kenma usually wasn't the one to suggest doing stuff, much less romantic stuff. Especially if it had to do with physical effort - ice skating was difficult. Kuroo wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Maybe Kenma was so depressed he was trying to overcompensate. Maybe he had been kidnapped by aliens and his brain had been probed. Either way, Kuroo had a feeling the outing wouldn't turn out perfectly. He shook himself out of his stupor and nodded carefully: the only thing he could really do was go, and make sure nothing terrible happened.

"Okay," he agreed, "That sounds fun."

"But first, you need to go home and shower," Kenma said, turning to walk to his bedroom. Over his shoulder, he called out, "You stink."

"Thanks!"

"It wasn't a compliment," Kenma snorted, rolling his eyes. He glanced at the clock in his kitchen, surprised that it was only 11 in the morning. Turning back to Kuroo for a moment, he informed him, "Meet back here at noon."

"Alrighty," Kuroo replied, still watching him warily. Something was up, but he wasn't sure what was wrong. He would just have to find out.

As Kuroo drove them to the ice skating rink, Kenma picked at his nails absentmindedly and read the reviews of some of the games released for the holiday seasons on his phone. Like usual, most of them were praising the games, adding their own ideas, commenting what they would change. There were some negative reviews, but by then he had learned to ignore them. What did stand out quite a few times to him weren't actually reviews, they were how people kept starting their comments.

I got this for my boyfriend! He loved it and we play together as a team, it's a great way to stay together. Sometimes I even let him win!

My girlfriend bought this game for me, she said she knew I would love it. Turns out, I did!

I absolutely adore the graphics, it's a huge step up from the previous video games. Sometimes my girlfriend and I will just explore the entire world together, sort of like a pseudo-vacation. We play it together constantly.

It really, really bothered him, and he couldn't even figure out why. The entire concept of significant others had never bothered him before, so why now? It seemed like it was the only thing Kenma noticed lately. There were so many couples, so many people holding hands, laughing and smiling together, so much PDA.

Kenma glanced at Kuroo. He was humming along to the radio, the wind from the window messing up his already disheveled hair. Kenma suspected that he was the type to enjoy public affection. He'd be the type that loved showing off their significant other, telling the other world that they were dating.

Was Kenma holding him back?

The idea kept racing through his mind, branching off into more thoughts until finally the car slowed and stopped in a parking lot. Kenma's mind went blank, for better or for worse.

"Shall we?" Kuroo asked, opening his door and stepping out. There really wasn't any other option; Kenma couldn't back out now after he was the one to suggest the date. He took a deep breath and got out of the car, following his boyfriend into the ice skating rink.

"Damn it," Kenma muttered.

He was sprawled across the ice on his back, unwilling and unable to stand up. Within a few minutes of ice skating, it became glaringly obvious that he was terrible at it. He had fallen so many times he suspected he would end up with one giant bruise on his butt and lower back. The first time he had fallen, Kuroo laughed. The next few times, the laughter died out, and finally, Kuroo ended up being concerned.

The only progress he had was being able to pull himself around the rink by holding onto the edge. Kenma wasn't entirely sure if he even believed that could be called progress. Angry and disappointed with himself, he continued to lay on the ice. The cold kept making its way into his clothes, but he couldn't bring himself to care all that much.

"C'mon, you've got to get up," Kuroo said, flitting around above him, clearly concerned. He carefully bent down, leaning over his boyfriend and asked, "You okay?"

"This sucks," Kenma whined, taking the hand that Kuroo had finally extended. They stood at the same time and moved towards the edge of the ice skating rink. Kenma held onto the wall tightly, glaring at Kuroo who had easily maneuvered himself to lean his back against it.

"Wanna tell me why?"

Kenma shot him a look and scoffed, "You know why."

"Well, I meant besides the fact that you suck at ice skating," Kuroo chuckled and smirked good naturedly. He pushed off the wall and skated small circles around their little area. The action earned another glare from Kenma.

"There isn't anything else," Kenma insisted, yet Kuroo saw his eyes dart around the rink. For a split second, his expression seemed irritated before turning back to neutral. Kenma wasn't the best at lying, and he knew that. He knew that Kuroo would know as well.

Kuroo skated a bit more, seeming to look around the rink for a possible reason Kenma could be unhappy. There wasn't much: a few couples skating together, a little kid crying after falling, people huddled around the bonfire for warmth. Usually he could easily decipher Kenma's moods, but today there was something different, if not a bit more complicated.

A cold gust of wind blew through the rink and Kenma grumbled something to himself. Kuroo skated back to him, full of curiosity and asked, "What was that?"

"Nothing," he replied, pushing himself off the wall. He didn't fall, so that was an accomplishment, though he was nowhere near mastering the art of ice skating. Kuroo followed him with ease, skating both figurative and literal circles around him.

Kenma tried once again to skate on his own, following what he had been told. Knees bent slightly, lean forward, push out in a diagonal direction. He nearly shouted in joy when he was able to glide a few feet without falling. Proud of himself, he glanced around the rink to show Kuroo his progress, but he was distracted by a couple skating together.

The couple seemed to be around the same age as him, and the boy was having trouble ice skating. His girlfriend was laughing and teasing him but held out her hand. They held hands and she pulled him along, instructing how to skate as he held on for dear life. The way the couple interacted vaguely reminded Kenma of his own relationship with Kuroo, which eventually led to the question: Why hadn't Kuroo pulled him around the ice skating rink?

Kenma frowned to himself, subconsciously still proud of himself for staying on his feet. He half-stumbled half-glided towards the wall and leaned over it to collect his thoughts. Who knows where Kuroo had gone; he was probably doing figure 8s and some weird triple axle or something.

Stupid Kuroo.

The emotion Kenma felt was unusual, he usually felt neutral emotions or emotions along the lines with depression and anger. Observing the different interactions of the people ice skating, he suddenly identified the emotion to be guilt. With all of the couples holding hands and ice skating together, he felt guilty for withholding affection towards Kuroo.

He already knew he believed Kuroo to be the affectionate type, and Kuroo had already proven himself to be a good person, a good boyfriend; so how did Kenma respond? He shied away from any physical contact that wasn't absolutely necessary, he refused to show a normal amount of affection, even after all that Kuroo had done for him.

Kenma grew more and more angry with himself as he recounted every nice thing his boyfriend had done for him. Kuroo helped with all of his cats, he listened to any complaints, he took care of Kenma, he knew when to talk and when not to, he even made Kenma breakfast for heaven's sake. Even after everything, they hadn't kissed, much less held hands in public.

Though he vaguely recognized a presence next to him, he continued to scold himself. Kenma cursed himself for being such a cold boyfriend, why Kuroo wanted to stay with him without any reciprocation, he had no clue. Terrible, self insulting thoughts went through his mind. Eventually, a hand tapped his shoulder and he yelped, turning around only to fall once again. Fortunately, he didn't fall the entire way.

"Whoa, you're okay," Kuroo said, supporting Kenma with an arm around his waist. He settled Kenma onto his skates, making sure that he was balanced before finally letting him go.

They were quiet.

Kenma avoided Kuroo's eyes, knowing that he would be dissected and easily understood. Instead, he looked around the rink, which wasn't a much better option. There were still couples holding hands, laughing together, and one girl had even kissed her boyfriend on the cheeks.

Extremely uncomfortable, he turned slightly, facing Kuroo. He cleared his throat, once, twice, and mumbled, "Kuroo… If you want, we can hold hands. Everything else is."

Kuroo smiled and studied him, before slowly shaking his head. Kenma frowned; that was definitely not how he thought the situation would go.

"Yeah, but we're not everyone else," Kuroo replied, his smile turned into a smirk. He paused for a moment, his facial features softening and his smile returned. With a deep breath and caring filling his voice, he continued, "I know you don't like PDA. Or, for that matter, unnecessary physical affection in general."

Kenma smiled softly, flattered by how much Kuroo cared for him. Unfortunately, his thoughts shifted back to how Kuroo still didn't get much affection and he frowned again.

"Well, that's true I guess…but I feel bad. We've been dating a while…" he trailed off uncertainly, staring at the ice.

"Yeah, if it was anyone else I would agree with you, but it's not," Kuroo replied, moving in front of Kenma. He held out his hand, tapping Kenma on the head and continued, "It's you, Kenma. You're worth going slow for. No matter how slow, or even if we stop, you're worth it."

They were quiet again, though it was a different type of silence. Kuroo smiled, watching Kenma as what was said finally sunk in. His smile turned into a full blown grin when Kenma started to turn red, and the color definitely wasn't from the cold. Before he could short-circuit, Kuroo laughed and broke the silence.

"Now, let's get you ice skating!" He announced, smirking and skating away.

Kenma briefly wondered if Kuroo had ever done ice skating competitions of participated in speed skating. He chuckled at the image for a moment before his thoughts switched to his own ice skating. Kenma's blush flared up once again as he buried the feeling of embarrassment as he called out, "Kuroo! I actually would like you to pull me around the rink."

Kuroo stopped in his tracks and laughed, before turning around and skating back to his boyfriend. Towering over him, his nose crinkled as Kuroo smiled one of his genuine smiles, ignoring the urge to give Kenma a big bear hug. Holding out his hands, Kuroo took one of Kenma's hands and intertwined their fingers. Immediately, Kuroo smirked and turned around once again, starting to skate around the rink and pulled Kenma behind him.

"I think I can do that."

"Another?" Kenma whined, flopping onto the couch. "We watched a movie this morning."

"Is that supposed to be a convincing argument?" Kuroo teased, clicking through the On-Demand movies. Every once in a while, he would make a noise that Kenma knew meant he was curious. They eventually settled on Captain America and Kuroo continued the argument long-forgotten, "Besides, movies are great. You can't go wrong with a good plot and good acting."

Kenma snorted and rolled his eyes, but gave in and cuddled up next to Kuroo. The movie started and Kenma mused out loud, "You know…"

"Hmm?" Kuroo asked, though his eyes were obviously trained on the movie.

"When I first met you, I thought you were incredibly obnoxious," Kenma explained, nibbling at his lip. He watched his boyfriend out of the corner of his eye and reveled in the fact that Kuroo raised his eyebrow in curiosity. Hooked, definitely.

Kenma kept quiet for a moment, trying not to laugh as Kuroo became more curious. Eventually, he turned around and asked, "What were you going to say?"

"Oh, nothing, that was it."

"You're such a great person," Kuroo replied sarcastically. He feigned hurt and dramatically turned back to the tv to watch the movie. Clyde meowed, jumping onto his lap and Kuroo pet him with hardly any delay. If there was one thing he learned about movie-time at Kenma's apartment is that he always had to be prepared to pet them at any time.

Kuroo felt a weight on his shoulder and smiled. Without turning much, he looked down and wasn't surprised to see Kenma leaning on his shoulder, though Kuroo was surprised by how much affection filled him when he looked at Kenma.

"You are obnoxious," he repeated, though he had a small smile on his face. Kenma nuzzled his face into Kuroo's shoulder out of slight embarrassment. With his voice slightly muffled by the fabric, he continued, "But I'm so glad I met you. You're sweet and considerate, funny and dorky, you're even kind of handsome… if you like that type of guy. You're obnoxious, but if you weren't, you wouldn't be Kuroo, and I wouldn't be falling for you."

The only sound at that point was the hum of the radiator and the sound coming from the movie. Kuroo was silent, stunned by the confession. For once in his life, he had no idea what to say. He was so overwhelmed with emotion that he feared if he spoke, his voice would crack and show just how much those words affected him.

He was in awe, that's all there was to it.

Kenma, his Kenma, who hardly talked more than what was necessary of him had spoken an entire monologue. Not to mention that the monologue was a confession of how much he cared about Kuroo. He had even admitted that he was falling for Kuroo, he had said that he liked Kuroo the way he was, bad traits and all.

Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, depending on how he'd look at it, Kuroo's rapid-fire thoughts were interrupted. Kenma turned himself so he was cuddled up in Kuroo's arms, leaning against his chest. The one thing Kuroo registered was how cute he looked curled up like that in his own arms, before his mind short-circuited once again.

Kenma pulled Kuroo down and kissed him for the first time. On the lips. A real kiss, on the lips. He blushed and looked away, mumbling, "That was for today, and every day before. Thanks for waiting for me."

It took a moment. Well, maybe several moments, but Kuroo eventually recovered and processed what had happened. He grinned to himself and quickly returned to his old self, the one that didn't freak out over the smallest sign of affection from his boyfriend.

"Well, if I get that every time I wait for you," he joked, kissing the top of Kenma's head, "I'll wait forever."