kuroo’s schedule this semester is insane.

he’s working part time to cover housing because his roommate dropped out without telling him, he’s taking something like fifty labs all worth half a credit each (only a slight exaggeration), and, worst of all, there’s no time in his day to see you.

he misses you. you’re trying to buck up and not be needy, but he can see it in your eyes, in the way you always fall right into his arms every time you do see each other, like you need to sate your skin-hunger because you don’t know when you’ll see him next. he appreciates your understanding, but… he misses you, too.

he’d set up a fucking chart, made you fill in your weekly schedule, overlapping his, until he found a hole in both.

“it’ll have to be while i do homework,” he’d said, foot tapping anxiously, “is that okay?”

“of course,” you’d given him your easy, sunny smile, and he planted his face in your lap and moved your hand to muss his hair more.

now, he looks over at you fondly, lying on your back spread-eagle in his bed. it’s something you rarely get to do, since he’s usually crammed in it with you. you sleep holding hands, when you stay the night, locked together like sea otters drifting on the waves.

he’s exiled to the desk next to the bed, though, working through reactions of aromatics and sneaking longing glances at your prone form.

“do you wanna—”

“i’m not in chemistry for a reason,” your voice floats up from the bed, though your eyes stay peacefully closed. “do your molecule splitting or whatever yourself.”

“mean,” kuroo says, pushing his chair back and running his hands through his hair. “what if i was gonna say ‘do you wanna cuddle?’”

“mm, you weren’t,” you say. “i said that earlier and you were all, no, babe, i have to finish my lab workbook because the—”

“i know what i said,” he grumbles. “go back to sleep.”

“okay,” you say. “i believe in you. or whatever. good luck.”

“thanks.” he picks up his pencil again for a moment, then tilts his chair back, tipping his head backward, hands braced on the desk. his room is so small he’s almost touching the bed. you tilt your head to the side, eyes opening the slightest bit. “what am i even doing this for?”

“because it’s your passion, honey.” one of your hands rests on your stomach, just beneath the hem of your shirt. that’s where he likes to hold you.

“but you’re gonna be the one making all the money,” he whines. “and all you have to do is make a bunch of supply demand graphs all day.”

“yep,” you say brightly, “but i make those graphs so you can be my stay at home husband someday. so watch your mouth.”

“fine,” he grumbles, righting his chair. “that’s what i’m doing this for. to be your househusband.”

“that’s right,” you say encouragingly. “work hard, tetsurō.”

I'm a simple guy. Figured I'd become a doctor...so I could cure some kid with the same disease, and tell his parents they owed me nothing! Me...a doctor! There's a joke!!

And yet it doesn’t really have an equivalent outside of fan culture. "Tearjerkers” can sometimes come close, they’re probably the closest thing to a mainstream hurt/comfort genre that there is. But those types of books and movies don’t usually focus on the “comfort” aspect in the same way, and don’t make use of tension and release.

I think every good hurt/comfort fic makes use of tension and release just as horror does, whether the writer is consciously aware of it or not. Though of course the tension and release in h/c comes from different sources than in horror. Instead of anticipating something frightening, you anticipate the intimacy and/or validation that comes from the “comfort” part you know is eventually coming. That’s what provides release of the tension built up during the “hurt” scenes.

So, so much fanfiction is H/C. No label required. If something isn’t labelled ‘angst’ it can be startling to find no happy-ish resolution, even if the summary gave no indication it would have a happy ending. It’s almost as if the default structure of a fic, without a label marking it as an exception, is ‘something shit happens to the character, someone makes it better for them’. I’ve been in fandom for about twenty years and it’s always been that way.