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It’s freezing outside, so Kuroo isn’t really surprised to find Kenma’s hand in his pocket. “Oho?” he says anyway, slinging a glance at Kenma. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” Kenma lies, trying to pull his hand out.
“Are you leaving your trash in my pocket again?” Kuroo says, clenching Kenma’s fingers in his hand, their struggle hidden from the eyes of passers-by. “I swear to god, if I stick my fingers in another empty jello cup—”
“Oh my god,” Kenma says, wrenching his hand free. “It’s not an empty jello cup.”
Kuroo fishes carefully around his pocket. At first he finds nothing, until a sharp edge digs into his finger. He pulls out a key, still shiny from being newly made, but with no further identifying marks. The metal glints under the neon lights of nearly-spring Ikebukuro, resting in Kuroo’s palm like a weirdly shaped puddle.
“What’s this?” Kuroo says again, but given the way Kenma suddenly looks at Kuroo down the length of his nose, it’s the wrong thing to say.
“What’s it look like?” Kenma sniffs.
Kuroo closes his fingers around the key, not wanting to drop it. However much he studies Kenma’s profile, he can’t tell if the red on his cheeks is from the cold or from something else. Kenma’s embarrassment is a fickle beast, just as likely to turn Kenma into a cornered cat or a mute swan. Well, a swan can still break your arm.
They’ve entered the train station, and Kuroo views the key again under the cold light. “It’s an apartment key,” he guesses. “Or a house key.” He meets Kenma’s eyes for confirmation. “But I already have your house key.”
Kenma blinks, a crack in his shell. “You have my parents’ house key.”
Kuroo’s stomach swoops. “So this is…”
But Kenma has returned to his non-disclosure stance, face shuttered and chin tucked into his scarf, and gives Kuroo nothing. Kuroo isn’t deterred in the slightest. He grins, empowered by the knowledge of what the key opens, even if he doesn’t know where.
“I will figure it out, you know,” he says.
If Kenma smiles, it’s hidden. “Good,” he says. “I want you to.”
🔑
Where there is a key, there must be a door. Where there is the blank wall of Kenma, there is another way. “Hello, Tetsu-kun,” Kenma’s mom greets him on the phone. “It’s been a while.”
“Hello, Auntie. Sorry, Auntie,” Kuroo says dutifully, prodding the key on front of him on the folding desk he’s set up for homework. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she says smugly. “Kenma said you might call.”
“He did?” Kuroo lays his head on the desk next to the key, fond and frustrated in equal measures. “Of course he did. He’s moved out, hasn’t he?”
“Two weeks ago, now.” She sounds amused.
“Can you tell me where he moved, Auntie? Please.”
“Oh, Tetsu-kun,” she says sweetly. “No.”
Kuroo reverses his forwards recline into a backwards one, sprawling onto his floor with legs akimbo. “You’re working with him, Auntie? How could you?”
“You’re better than this, Tetsurou,” she laughs. “He’s my son. Of course I’m helping him.”
“He’s a little bastard, and you know it,” Kuroo says, earning another cackle from Kenma’s mother. “Thanks for nothing, Auntie.”
“You’ll figure it out,” she says. “Just indulge him, okay?”
Kuroo groans, but the protest is half-hearted. He loves to indulge Kenma. It’s a recurring theme in his life. A recurring source of his problems as well. He feels left out. No. No, that’s fool’s talk. Kenma hasn’t left him out. This is Kuroo being included in a very specific plan. A plan designed to challenge him, for sure, but still designed especially for him. What’s more caring than that?
“Right,” he says, at length, giving up. How could he not? Kenma loves him enough to challenge him. The thought bends light like a prism. “Okay.”
Auntie laughs again, softly this time, as if she knows. She probably does. Like mother, like son. “Take care, Tetsu-kun,” she says. “And good luck.”
“Thanks, Auntie. Bye, Auntie.” Kuroo drops the phone on the floor and throws his arms over his face. His breath is heavy; his face burning. His cock is full and warm. Kenma wants to play? Fine. Fine. Kuroo can play. Since Kenma didn’t have Kuroo there to help him move, he would’ve had his parents, and maybe somebody to carry heavy things.
Kuroo might not be able to crack Kenma or Kenma’s mom, but he can crack Yamamoto. Like a nut.
🔑
Yamamoto droops in betrayal, his sushi uneaten. It’s not even a nice sushi place, and Kuroo’s a little sorry about that, but he’s still only a uni student with limited funds.
“You’ve got some guts,” Yamamoto mutters. “Using me to get to Kenma.” He mean-mugs Kuroo over his whitefish nigiri. “What makes you think I’ll give him up?”
“Because I’m asking nicely,” Kuroo says. Maybe it’s unfair, but he’s not above using whatever’s left of his upperclassman–captain influence. It makes Yamamoto grimace. He doesn’t know it yet, but when he’d agreed to meet Kuroo to hear his request, he’d already lost.
“You think I’m the weakest link,” Yamamoto says in a surprising moment of self-recognition and growth. Maybe his turn as the captain had been good for him. Kenma certainly hadn’t stopped whining about having to be vice captain for the whole year.
“Not the weakest,” Kuroo says kindly. “Only weaker than Kenma.”
Yamamoto’s scowl softens in gratitude. “Thanks, capt—Kuroo-san.”
Kuroo gives him the time to relax and start eating his sushi again before saying, “So, where is it?”
“In Kichijōji, captain,” Yamamoto says eagerly, a grain of rice and a dap of wasabi on his lip.
Kuroo leans back on his creaky plastic seat, clenching his fist in victory under the table. Call him the nutcracker. “Finish your food, Yamamoto,” he says. He can afford to be benevolent, even if he can’t afford good sushi.
🔑
It’s not an apartment. It’s a house. A small one with a traditional roof. Corners that Kuroo can hang his hopes on. But he only looks up at the house for a while from the street, then leaves. It isn’t time yet.
🔑
A week later, Kenma regards him coolly over the shōgi board set on Kuroo’s folding table. “You still haven’t figured it out,” he says, accusing.
“I’m working on it.” It’s not a lie. Kuroo is working on it. He moves a piece. “Your turn.”
“I know you called my mom.” Kenma leans over the board to advance his general. “Pathetic.”
“She refused to help me, though,” Kuroo points out.
“That’s why it’s pathetic,” Kenma says. “She likes you more than she likes me. How do you fail that? Checkmate.”
“Ah.” Kuroo smiles crookedly. He should’ve seen that one coming. He shrugs. “Well, there you have it.”
Kenma slumps back in his seat like a disappointed pillow, sinking into is oversized hoodie. The position gives him a double chin, which Kuroo finds terribly distracting. “Are you even trying?” he mumbles.
And what’s Kuroo supposed to say to that? I love you? Because that’s what Kenma’s asking, isn’t he? Are you even trying? Do you even love me? Same thing. “I am, I promise,” he says. “Wanna go another round?”
The wedge in Kenma’s brow deepens. He eyes Kuroo suspiciously. “Okay,” he says, eyes narrowed. Kuroo hides his grin in his hand.
🔑
Expectation cultivates delight.
Well, for Kuroo it does. From Kenma’s increasingly passive-aggressive messages, he suspects Kenma has yet to experience any delight. The last one really hurts too. Kenma does not pull his punches.
Friendship ended with Kuro. Now Shōyō is my best friend.
But Kuroo holds his tongue. He has a very short window of opportunity. Kenma rarely leaves his den, and when he does, he doesn’t stay out very long. Fortunately new best friend Shōyō is as enthusiastic as ever, especially when Kuroo shows him the meme.
“Just keep him out of the house for as long as you can,” Kuroo instructs. “No big deal.”
“No big deal,” Hinata echoes. “I can’t lie, though.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Kenma will know if I try,” Hinata says in a rare show of self-awareness. Everybody’s growing up. Kuroo congratulates him in his mind, feeling sentimental, but keeps on task.
“Then don’t try,” he says, phone squeezed between his cheek and shoulder while he finishes taping the cardboard box together. It’s a mess, but it only needs to hold for a few hours. “You’re the greatest decoy, kid. Steer the conversation. Kenma loves it when you talk to him.”
“I love talking to Kenma!” Hinata latches onto Kuroo’s words.
“There you go,” Kuroo says, dumping his clothes into a duffle bag. “Easy-peasy. You’ll be great.”
“Thank you, Kuroo-san!” Hinata sparkles audibly. “I won’t let you down!”
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re Kenma’s best friend, after all.” It only hurts a little to say it, whether it’s true or not, but with Hinata smoothly in his pocket, along with Kenma’s house key, the pieces are falling into place. Kuroo’s gambit is ready. Now he only needs to implement it.
🔑
The thing about Akaashi Keiji is that he’s polite. But only when it suits him.
“The nutcracker?” he says, eyeing Kuroo. “More like a nutcase.”
In contrast, Bokuto gives Kuroo an enthusiastic chest-bump. “The nutcracker! Yeah!”
“Don’t call me that in public, though,” Kuroo says, and Akaashi snorts impolitely.
“Hey, Akaashi, check out how much stuff I can carry!” Bokuto says, balancing Kuroo’s heaviest, book-filled boxes in his arms. It’s pretty impressive. Kuroo gives him a golf clap.
“Yeah, bro,” he says. “But can you do that—” he glances at the pile of his belongings “—about seven more times?”
About seven round trips later, Kuroo’s stuff has been moved from the car into the house. Bokuto’s not even out of breath. “When’s the house-warming?” he says.
“I’ll let you know.” He opens his arms. “Bring it in, big guy.”
Bokuto accepts the hug as payment, while Akaashi accepts the promise of a future, all-expenses-paid meal. Kuroo waves them off in Akaashi’s parents’ car on the sleepy road in front of the house, jittery with excitement.
🔑
A few hours later, when the door goes, Kuroo grips his pen so hard it hurts and calls out, “Welcome home, Kenma.”
Presentation is key. It’s not manipulation, but it’s not not manipulation. It’s setting the stage. Dressing the window. Other analogies. Kuroo has spread his scant possessions in the house as though they’ve always been there. He’s made himself comfortable at the kotatsu, doing his homework in front of the TV. He holds his breath, but casually. He’s super nonchalant.
There’s a noise from the entryway, and then Kenma shuffles into the living room, still wearing his coat and hat, scarf trailing behind him. He looks at Kuroo, wide-eyed and cold-flushed. “Kuro.”
“Hey there.” Kuroo’s pen slips from his nerveless grasp. It hits the open face of his notebook and rolls off onto the table. He doesn’t try retrieve it, caught up in pretending that the situation’s nothing out of the ordinary. “Did you have a good time with Hinata?”
Kenma opens his mouth, closes it. Drops his scarf. Looks at Kuroo some more. “How—”
It’s rare to see Kenma so surprised, and Kuroo mellows at the sight, success spooling in his belly. It’s not often he gets to drop a gold general on Kenma’s side of the board. So to speak. The bewilderment has turned Kenma into a startled stick insect whose only defensive measure is staying still and hoping people don’t see him.
“How’d I do it?” Kuroo drops his chin into his palm and grins up at Kenma. “I asked people.”
Kenma lets his coat shlup right off his shoulders onto the floor. “You asked people.”
“Yup.” Kuroo pats the floor cushion next to him, inviting Kenma as if it’s his house. Kenma’s expression flickers. “Why? How would you have done it?”
“I would’ve just followed you,” Kenma says as if it’s obvious. And it is.
“Oh my god,” Kuroo honks in delight. “I didn’t even think of that.”
Kenma heaves with a snort. “No,” he agrees. “You didn’t.” He scrapes the beanie off his head and slinks closer like a cat sniffing around its food. Kuroo’s heart swoops. That’s his Kenma. “Would’ve been faster if you did.”
“Yeah, well.” Kuroo lifts the edge of the quilt that he’s sitting under, and Kenma slides right in, like he belongs. “I’m here now.”
“Yeah.” Kenma cuddles up to him and smiles. “Welcome home, Kuro.”