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For all the time Kuroo had known Daishou, he had always had fingernails bitten down to the quick. Jagged edges and skin peeled away around the cuticles.
Most people wouldn’t think it of Daishou, who always presented everyone with a confident exterior and an unwavering attitude.
But Kuroo knew.
Over the years, Kuroo had learned to gauge Daishou’s anxiety levels by the condition of his nails.
Kuroo had seen Daishou get so stressed over an upcoming test that he bit down the nails he had worked so hard on keeping intact.
Kuroo had seen Daishou idly chew on a nail while watching a film.
“I was doing so well too!” Daishou would complain the day after, curling his hands into fists.
Kuroo had seen Daishou hiss when the ball he was diving to save hit his nails rather than square on the back of his hand.
It was scary, catching Daishou biting his nails. He got into this state, sometimes, where it was like he wasn’t entirely there. Like he was staring into nothing and mind on autopilot.
Kuroo wanted to reach out and hold Daishou’s hands between his own sometimes. Only to stop him. And only sometimes.
“I’m trying something new,” Daishou declared when he walked into class one morning. “My mom bought me this nail polish that tastes gross. It might help me stop.”
He held his hand out in front of him for Kuroo to see his nails coated in a layer of polish.
“I hope it works,” Kuroo said.
“Yeah, me too.”
It didn’t work, at first.
Sure, when Daishou brought his fingers to his mouth the bitter taste of the polish had him scrunching up his nose and sticking his tongue out in disgust.
But Daishou kept peeling the polish off.
“I don’t know what else to do with my fingers,” he’d say.
Kuroo ended up buying a bottle of nail polish himself and insisted on reapplying a coat whenever he noticed Daishou had peeled it off again.
(He knew Daishou wouldn’t be able to stop himself biting before he could get home and redo his nails himself.)
When he smiled, Daishou stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth. He’d always done it, as far as Kuroo was concerned. It was cute, and undeniably Daishou.
But now, with the addition of the nail polish, Daishou had started doing it when he didn’t like something. Like it was coated in nail polish.
Daishou learned to stop peeling the nail polish off, eventually.
Kuroo was glad, because it was another step in the right direction.
But he missed the quiet moments where he would hold Daishou’s hand steady as he painted his nails.
And he missed the quiet “thank you” he would receive every time.
One time, Daishou bit the nail on his index finger on his left hand down, despite the nail polish.
“I hate this! I don’t even know why I did it!” he fumed at lunch that day.
“You’ll get better. It hasn’t been that long,” Kuroo said.
“Daishou-kun? Why are your nails so long?” The additional question of “apart from that one” wasn’t said but heavily implied.
Kuroo didn’t know who this girl was. But he saw how Daishou’s head snapped up and how his hands curled up into fists.
“I- I keep forgetting to cut them.”
Kuroo caught the way Daishou desperately tried to control the steadiness of his voice, tried to uphold his facade and his reputation.
“Ah, I see.”
Daishou came into school the next day with three more nails bitten down.
It took almost two years for Daishou to stop biting his nails completely.
Probably.
He didn’t really notice when he had stopped. He just sort of did.
He looked down at his hands and his nails were long. They were healthy, and there was no sign that he had ever bitten his nails in the first place.
And he was so, so happy.
Daishou was able to fully throw himself into volleyball for the first time in years, with no fear of hurting himself.
And with that, he started to improve his serves and receives.
And Kuroo gladly stayed behind after school to help him.
Even though Daishou had stopped biting his nails, Kuroo still found himself checking Daishou’s hands for signs of stress.
And he still wanted to hold Daishou’s hand.
It was the last week before summer break. Daishou and Kuroo had tests in every subject, and volleyball practice became even more tiring because of the upcoming spring high tournament.
The two of them were at Kuroo’s house, studying for the Japanese literature exam the next day.
The room was mostly silent, besides the sound of Daishou absent-mindedly tapping his nails against the table. Kuroo would have found it annoying, had it been anyone but Daishou.
“That chemistry test felt pretty good,” Kuroo said.
Daishou paused writing. “Yeah. But what did you get for the calculation question?”
“Four grams, I think?”
“Good, me too.”
They soon settled back into silence, punctuated by the rustle of paper and the scribbling of pens.
Kuroo sat up properly, and stretched his arms. “Damn, essays suck,” he was about to say.
But the words died on his tongue.
Because Daishou was in that state again.
Staring into nothing. Fingers in his mouth. No, on his lips. Blood on his fingers.
“Daishou!” Kuroo whispered urgently.
Daishou snapped out of it. His eyes flicked down to his fingers, then to Kuroo. He licked the blood off his lips.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Daishou frowned, but only barely, a slight furrow of his eyebrows. And, just as small a movement, a shake of his head.
“Let’s take a break from studying,” Kuroo tried. “We have ice cream downstairs.”
“Okay,” Daishou agreed.
After they finished their Japanese literature exam, Daishou turned to Kuroo and said, “It was okay. I think I was worried over nothing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
By volleyball practice though, Daishou had become more subdued, and had stopped talking. His teeth worried at his bottom lip, tearing shreds of skin off. His tongue flicked out, not like when he smiled, not like when he disliked something, but to lick away the blood before people noticed.
And like always, Kuroo noticed.
He pulled him aside, far away enough that stray balls wouldn’t reach them.
“You need to stop.”
Daishou’s reply was whispered, harsh with frustration. “I don’t know how.”
“I- Come to the changing room with me.”
Kuroo half-ran, pulling Daishou a pace behind him by the wrist. (Not by the hand, he couldn’t do that to himself.)
“Here, borrow my lip balm.”
Daishou squinted at him. “Since when did you have lip balm?”
Kuroo rolled his eyes. “Shut up and take it!”
In volleyball practice the next day, Daishou received a ball with his face.
They were playing a practice match, and he was distracted by a stubborn piece of skin on his lip that just wouldn’t come off.
The ball hit him on the cheek, and opened up the scab formed from the day before.
“God, you are such an idiot,” Kuroo scolded him later on.
Daishou made a face at him. And then he pounced, reaching around Kuroo to press his ice pack to the back of Kuroo’s neck.
Kuroo hissed, pushing Daishou away. But Daishou just pressed his cold hands to Kuroo’s sides in response.
And then they were laughing, laughing like it was all just a game. Like they were small kids again, playing volleyball under the summer sun.
Kuroo convinced Daishou to start wearing lip balm.
He forgot, most of the time.
But the times he remembered, it worked.
The times he didn’t, Kuroo would remind him.
(Daishou looked cute wearing lip balm, Kuroo had decided. And maybe, just maybe Kuroo was tempted to kiss him.)
But he was trying, putting what he was able into getting better, and that’s why Kuroo liked him so much.