Chapter Text
FAWN (II)
“No one ever says all the love you give might not be enough
Broke my heart in two a couple times
Before it hurt too much”
“almost home” by mxmtoon / lyrics
✧
“Do we have to?” Kenma complains as he drudges after Kuroo. The older boy was finally, Kuroo’s words, in the middle school volleyball team and wanted to practice every day. Kenma toys with the egg shaped Tamagotchi in his pocket. He shakes his head and his bangs cover the streaking, bright light reflecting off the river. He takes a deep breath.
Kuroo’s hand slaps down on his arm with a solid slap. He peers at his palm and grins at the black streak. Kenma looks down at the small bite of his watermelon. He forces a swallow.
The Kozume family surprises Kuroo with a volleyball net on his birthday. The three of them walked the isles that smelled like new sneakers and classrooms, held Kenma up so he could see the laminated labels, and point to a plain white net on the top shelf.
Kenma’s never wrapped a gift before and the scotch tape ends up around his ankle by the end of the night. The terrifying sound of ripping it off his leg is almost worth Kuroo’s eyes lighting up.
“I’m going to be a spiker.”
Kenma looks at him. He looks down at the volleyball in his hands.
“And you’ll be my setter.”
Kenma looks at Kuroo.
Kenma looks down at the corner of his paper spotted with small, scribbled, doodles. The bell rings for class to change and he turns his quiz in to the front of the class. Later, as his fifth grade teacher half-grades, half-watches a new drama airing, he marks a test with a red10 next to a lumpy drawn ball.
Kenma’s father sits down next to him on his bed. “Kenma?”
Kenma’s curled form moves under his blankets and a small voice cries from under it.
“Your mom said you were sick…”
Kenma lifts the comforter around his head.
Kuroo stands in the doorway to his room. Kenma looks at his hip and sees it’s empty. He looks at his hands and sees a tray with a steaming bowl. He grunts a cough and burrows back under his sheets.
“Kenma~” The tray plunks on the bedside table. Kenma scrabbles for his sheets as Kuroo abruptly throws his body on the bed. “Kenma?”
Kenma blinks and his nose wrinkles as his eyelashes brush the blankets.
Kuroo’s fingers jab into his back once then disappear. “Kenma, you have to eat. You don’t want to get sicker, right?” They poke, then back away. Kenma yawns. His eyes fly open as his comforters are ripped off his body.
Kuroo stands on his mattress, blankets held in a ball over his head. “Kuro,” Kenma says weakly.
Kuroo tucks the blankets under his butt like a stuffed, crumbling egg. “If you eat I’ll give them back.” Kenma glares at him, then the blankets, then his lap. He shivers. He looks over at the bowl of hot, watered down blood and meat stew.
Kenma sits up and sets the tray on his knees. Kuroo smiles with his head in his hands, hands on his knees. Kenma ladles a spoonful of broth and blows. After he swallows he says, “You look like a chicken.”
Kuroo laughs loudly and squawks.
A woman and a man listen from outside the door as their neighbor’s boy excitedly explains what he witnessed on TV. They smile at the scratching of a pen on a pad, the tinking of a spoon hitting the bottom of a bowl, the patting of feet dashing back and forth over a small space. They hurry away when the feet get too close.
The phone rings a half hour later and some familiar words are exchanged. The first bedroom door creaks open and a man smiles at the two lumps on the bed, one starfished over the covers, mouth hanging open, the other a roll of blankets and mussed hair peeking out the top. The door closes softly.
His elementary graduation is loud. All of the parents are packed into the classroom, cameras flashing, smiles grinning. The students squirm around Kenma and he looks down at the tips of his shoes.
“Do you want ice cream?” His parents walk on either side of him on the sidewalk. The setting sun stretches their shadows into slim arrows.
Kenma yawns, “No.”
Kuroo waits by their door with his mom. Kenma look down at the wrapped, sphere shaped gift in his hands, then looks up at the apple pie in Kuroo’s mom’s hands. He walks half a step in front of his parents to meet the family.
The apple pie is gone in a half an hour. And the afternoon stretches with glasses of iced tea, whipped cream smiles, bandages over skinned knees, and the wistful strum of an acoustic band through the radio. Kuroo says they have to welcome the volleyball, so they boys pass between them overhead. When the Kuroo family leaves, Kenma nudges the ball with his foot into the bottom of his closet. It remains there, untouched, for two years.
Kuroo shows Kenma around their middle school. The volleyball club room lockers and how if you hit the corner of them hard enough they spring open, the secret sundial behind the giant oak tree, Kenma’s classrooms and the fastest way between them, Kuroo’s homeroom classroom and the window where he will be able to see his seat, and the boys bathroom no one uses.
Lastly, Kuroo shows him the gym. He sweeps his arms up high and wide and looks up through the metal ceiling beams. Kenma hugs his arms around his chest and glances over his shoulder.
“Hey.” Kuroo sits in the seat in front of Kenma.
Kenma nods minutely with a hum. He jabs the “JUMP” button on his controller and the ninja on screen kicks. He’s almost at a checkpoint. Kuroo opens the lid of his lunch. He picks at his food, glancing up at his friend every other second. Kenma tries to focus. Kuroo stops eating and sits back in his chair.
Kenma watches as his avatar is stabbed through the gut and falls to his knees. Kenma purses his lips. He looks up.
“Why did you skip practice?” Kuroo asks, voice and eyes even.
“I didn’t want to go.” Kenma says, voice even and dim.
(“Who is that? An upperclassman?”
“I don’t know. I think he-“)
Kuroo scoots forward so his knees knock against Kenma’s. “Why?”
Kenma fidgets in his seat. “I don’t know anyone there.” His eyes swaying across his desk. “And I don’t know how to play.”
“You won’t unless you play.”
Kenma’s fingers pause on the shell of the device.
“You know as much as the first years do. Maybe more because of me,” Kuroo says with an asymmetrical grin. He tucks his foot up on the seat and picks up his fork. He skewers a garden tomato and chomps on it. “Have you eaten?”
Kenma wrinkles his nose. He confirms the daunting, neon red “TRY AGAIN?”
“No.” The ninja respawns.
Kuroo makes some noises through a mouthful of food. He wipes his mouth on the inside of his shirt and swallows. “You need to. Here.” He offers a cut of meat from the Tupperware. He waves it over Kenma’s nose. “Kenma!”
The vampire boy makes a disgruntled whine when the human boy pulls the game out of his hands. Kenma glares through his bangs.
Kuroo laughs. “Here,” his voice quieter than before.
Kenma wraps his small hand around the utensil and pulls the bite off with his front teeth. The tender meat falls apart without the use of his fangs and he swallows.
(“I didn’t know vampires ate real food.”
“Be quiet!”)
Kenma lowers his head to the desk. His yellow eyes stare at the wall. Something prods his mouth and he looks up. Kuroo looks down at him and shakes the device in his face with a smile. Kenma sighs and takes a bite of the sandwich.
“This is Kenma. He’s a first year and is going to set for us.”
The middle schoolers call out greetings and their coach wanders over and introduces himself. Kuroo stands next to Kenma, one shoulder over the other’s. The coach’s eyes flit between them and he smiles politely.
Kuroo walks him around the gym, hand on the bottom of Kenma’s shirt, pulling it like a leash. Curious eyes follow the pair, watching in confusion as they shuffle and bicker till they walk a full circle of the space.
A whistle breaks the atmosphere and there’s a thunder of sneakers on the floor. All the boys look up at their instructor expectantly, except for one whose eyes stick to the door behind them.
Middle school sharpens curiosity into judgement. Months pass and the first years settle into the new pace of gossip before class, unapologetic bumps in the hall, and shrieking on bike rides home.
Kuroo goes through a growth spurt and him and his mom have to buy him new shoes. The mom and son drop off a bag of hand-me-down clothes.
The old shoes hang loosely off of Kenma’s ankles. Kenma unties them with a hurried huff and throws them across the room. They collect dust with the volleyball.
It’s raining. Kenma traces the wet drops clumping and dashing into each other with his eyes. The buzz of a melodramatic indie singer fills the empty space spring rain has brought. Kuroo seems to have inherited his mom’s taste in music. The heavy looking clouds roll across the sky like a river.
“Kenma.”
Kenma blows a raspberry.
Kuroo snorts. “You’re almost done, just a couple more problems.”
The study guide in front of Kenma is full of his chicken scratch handwriting, Kuroo’s commanding pen marks, and streaks of bright highlighter. Kenma scribbles on the bottom of the page.
The lights flicker before the power goes out. There’s a moment of silence before Kuroo impersonates a thunderous, villain-esque voice, and the two burst into giggles and snickers. Kenma’s father calls through the house and appears with an armful of lit candles. He sets a couple of the thick pillar candles on the table, and disappears down the hallway towards the toilet.
Kenma moves the paper closer to the dim lights. “Woah!” Kenma jolts at the sudden hands cupping his cheeks. Kuroo draws closer with drawn brows. He lets go after Kenma struggles a bit more. “Sorry. The candles make your eyes look like they're glowing.”
Kenma rubs his pink cheeks with the backs of his hands. He whispers something, but it’s swallowed by the sound of steadily pouring rain.
“I’m the one helping you not fail your classes, you shouldn’t be calling me an idiot.”
Kenma tucks his hair behind his ears as he rolls his eyes. He squints at his paper and tries to solve the next algebra problem.
The scratch of lead on paper, the branches creaking outside, and the quiet humming from Kuroo replaces the sound of the radio.
“HERE!”
Kenma jolts, arms outstretched. The ball falls and hits the bridge of his nose. The boy blinks back the tears welling up. The small team on the other side of the net rejoices in a chorus of “lucky!”s.
His clubmate darts around him worriedly. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just-”
Kenma holds his hand up, palm out. The kid backs off with a clumsy mumble. A confident and relaxed voice takes over the gap in conversation, there’s a couple smacks of hands before the other half of the club serves. The ball hits the net and pats against the glossy floor.
“Lucky!”s titter on Kenma’s side of the net. The vampire boy rubs his red nose and half-heartedly crouches to receive.
Kuroo finishes his second year. Kenma finishes his first.
It’s summer and they eat apple pie and play volleyball. They all sit in the shade of the maple tree with the beat up radio.
Kuroo’s shirt is smudged with both vanilla ice cream and dirt, his hair flat against his hair with sweat, his eyes bright. “Toss for me?”
Kenma pushes his finished plate across the metal garden table and sets his DS on the empty space.
His father reminds him to tie his shoe with a raised voice.
Kuroo waits, spinning his ball, discolored and full of scribbles. The sun makes his eyes gleam. Kenma stands.
“Where are you going for high school?”
Kuroo looks up with raised brows. He flips through the pages of a Shonen Jump volume. “Nekoma.”
The uniform is stiff. This is apparent because Kuroo shimmying every which way with a very serious look on his face. Though stiff, and ironed to the T, the pants are still folded over his ankle and the shirt hangs off his shoulders slightly, Kuroo’s going through another growth spurt.
Kuroo’s face pinkens as he holds up a piece, a knitted sweater vest. Kenma “pfft”s.
“Just wait, Kenma,” Kuroo ducks into the fuzzy disgrace of a uniform, “You’ll be having to wear one of these this time next year.”
“Okay, grandma’s boy.”
“OI!”
There’s a week left till school starts back up. They’re sitting on the floor of Kuroo’s family room. Kuroo's eyes latched on a recorded game, in his lap a notebook flipped open to a blank page. Chunky headphones rest over Kenma's ears.
"Hey. Hey." A finger pokes Kenma's shoulder.
"Hm." Kenma selects the "SAVE" option.
Kuroo shifts to face the other boy. Kenma rests his game on his lap.
“Keep...keep playing volleyball."
Through the TV speakers, the sound of the ball smacking down is followed by cheers. It's an old box TV, with wavering static, and a tin voice.
His fingers are white around his pencil. His shoulders drawn up. His eyes rest on Kenma's.
Kenma's eyes look to the floor. A referee's whistle blows.
He fidgets a button down to select his saved file.
“Okay.”
Kenma stands on the corner and stares down the stretch of the street. Someone in his class walks on the opposite side of the street heading towards their school. A humid breeze blows and dust is kicked into the air. Dandelions grow out of the cracks in the street.
He clutches the strap of his bag. He angles his body and steps into the crossroad.