y/n slander club ♡

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And use it, he does. God.

In the span of a couple quarters, you just now think maybe Kuroo Tetsurou took that “personality hire” comment to heart. Not to spite, you don’t think—hope, he's already proven himself to be a powerful man in spoken word alone. He’s probably using it as his motto, hung in his mind’s visionboard of JVA success, and you’re not sure how you feel about being the catalyst.

“It’s been less than a year and he's playing them like fiddles!” You exclaim over your coffee, cold in comparison to your blood, broiling over.

Akaashi only hums in response, softly blowing his latte and taking a sip as he listens to your grievances. You’d think your favorite former junior (which may soon turn into former favorite junior) would be a good ear, but each complaint is returned with its own origin story from high school and serves to piss you off even more.

“It took me ages to get Mr. Kanasawa to so much as glance at my presentations, but twenty minutes with him and a spontaneous proposal with Raijin is automatically stamped?”

That’s the worst of them, and it’s only the beginning. The cliques that make up your office building split like the sea for Kuroo, clawing at his former varsity athlete muscles and inviting him for drinks every evening. All the while you log more and more overtime, sipping at canned coffee—which is terrible for taking off the edge.

“That’s Kuroo for you. He did the same thing with Bokuto when they first met: played him like a fiddle.”

Akaashi continues. “You’d have thought they’d just clicked, you know? And it did look that way—but Kuroo tries when it comes to people. He tried for notoriously moody high school Bokuto Koutarou, and he's not stopping now.”

Akaashi laughs at the memory, light. Nostalgic and fond, warm as the latte he takes another sip of. You click your teeth.

It’s then that you realize you’re not a catalyst. Nothing close to it. You’re not, and have never been, a part of this at all. 

Kuroo Tetsurou has always been this way. More than mildly irritating and more than sufficed to be his own chemical reaction.

It’s then that you scratch off the “mild inconvenience” label on Kuroo’s mental file in the back of your mind and write down “hate” instead. With mental pencil—not pen. Because you do not feel so strongly about a simple co-worker. You're not paid nearly enough to feel much about anything. It is simply the only word that’s strong enough for now.

────────

The campaign is supposed to be with EJP Raijin and it is supposed to be Kuroo’s. It is not.

It is an exhibition match with EJP Raijin and the MSBY Black Jackals, and it is both yours and Kuroo’s. Shoved in your hands and sent to your email in a matter of seconds as how most things that belong to you have been delivered lately.

Kuroo comes with the coffee this time, pulling you into an unscheduled meeting room in the spaces between occupied timeslots and in the spaces where you’d, preferably, like to be away from him and preparing your own presentations due tomorrow. He hands you the latte and two large folders and gets to work.

“It’s still in small meetings and talks. It won’t actually be held until after the season starts.”

He has about three more stacks of paper than you, and he flips through them for a couple of seconds before stopping. A long finger points at some player profiles. Black and white ink, environmentally and budget-conscious.

“Suna Rintarou, Tatsuki Washio, and Komori Motoya all signed with Raijin at the beginning of the year. Inarizaki and Fukurodani graduates respectively, and high school’s best libero from the great Itachiyama Institute."

“And just this summer, an infamous little crow who wore the number ten is trying out with the Jackals. Home to some old friends and a cousin of whom I just mentioned.”

The volleyball nerd acts like you should know all of these names, and most of them, you do, but he also acts like you should be just as excited. With one of your superiors peeking through the windows as they pass by, you indulge him anyway.

“What does this mean for us?” For you, you want to say. How much more does this mean for him and he’s just dragging you along and unknowingly humiliating you?

“It means,” Kuroo taps two of his fingers on the table in a self-serving and somewhat pathetic kind of drumroll. “We’re about to get a V. League season of Monster Generation players. And if all goes well, a national team full of them.”

“You come up with that branding yourself?”

“Yes. And I want it all over Japan before the season’s over. Ideally in time for the Olympics.”

“Starting with EJP Raijin v. MSBY?”

He smiles. “Exactly.”

You sarcastically fanfare, blank, “And time for the million dollar question…”

“Have any of them actually agreed?”

Kuroo smirks. You want to smack it off him and make him pick it up.

“That’s what I have you for.”

You briefly glance at the window, and your superior is long gone. Then, you look back at Kuroo and take the folders and coffee. You don’t tell him that slideshows are already being crafted in your mind, emails drafted across your frontal lobe. You simply decide. 

You won’t be humiliated.

“You’re insane.”

“I’m a genius who’s about to get us both a raise, thank you.”

────────

You’ve come up with two reasons as to why you’ve gotten pulled into Kuroo Tetsurou’s nonsense exhibition match. He didn’t tell you, but you didn’t need him to. You could always tell things like this.

One of the two reasons Kuroo needs you is because he can’t be in two places at once. Otherwise, he’d have these teams wrapped around his finger and dancing in the square of his palm, which they already are, courtesy of high school connections. 

He’s been best friends with Bokuto Koutarou since they were seventeen, and newcomer Hinata Shoyo, freshly tanned and back straight from Brazil, can sweet talk teammates and adversaries alike even better than your co-worker. You never thought you’d see the day.

With each of them, you coax an agreement just by mentioning something about Kuroo, or 2012 to 2013, or that fated Spring Tournament, and they're in. It’s just like back at the office. Speak his name like a spell, and here comes the cavalry. It annoys you more than you could imagine, but it’s a check off the to-do list.

EJP Raijin and the Black Jackals are secured. 

The second reason, which is something Kuroo can’t make up for overnight and the one thing you have over him, is company seniority, and the privilege to present his updated proposal to the main conference room. 

Unfortunately for him and you both, that’s only the first step.

You’re but a cowardly lion in this circus ring, except the circus is a rectangular wooden table, ergonomic office chairs, and made up of executives twice your age, half your hair, and voices with power. Power (and money) you and Kuroo needed.

“Preparations for the Olympics are already starting, and the V. League season is busy as it is. Where are you getting the time and money?” Says one of the men on the farther end of the ergonomic circus table.

You. Jackasses.

Another comments, “I suppose the Black Jackals have been a dark horse as of lately, but these teams aren’t in any significant rankings right now. The JVA likes certainty, not sports betting and high school nostalgia. Can you guarantee enough success from both of them during the season to garner interest?”

Your stomach swirls, a little sick. There’s already interest! And success! Three slideshows, countless highlight reels and hundreds of crazed Twitter fan comments worth of it! Most of them about Miya Atsumu, yes, but it's interest all the same. 

Your nails dig into your binder. You switch to the next slide showing the charts instead of voicing your thoughts. It gets some vaguely neutral-positive hums, but it’s not enough. 

An older woman on the right off-handedly comments on Hinata, who you forget is practically an unknown. A notion you never would’ve guessed by the way both teams—and even Kuroo himself—seemed to have the back of his high school jersey etched in their heart and behind their eyelids. It makes your brow twitch for him. The man was a total sweetheart when you’d met, and if the buzz amongst the teams was true, a total monster to the soles of his reputedly powerful feet.

“You graduated from Fukurodani, the same year as Mr. Kuroo, correct? I admire your respect for your alma mater, especially with such talent that had come from it.”

She continues. “I know you’re young. We appreciate ambition, but we’re not charity workers.” 

Someone drops a pen as soon as the words leave her mouth. It hits the ground with the weight of your meteor heart, falling to your feet. You glance at the clock.

“Thank you for your time.”

And after, if you wait for the bathroom to clear so you can scream into your hands and scorn Kuroo Tetsurou, no one can say. Does an overworked sports promoter truly make a sound if there’s no one around to hear?

────────

“So how’d you get to know Tetsurou?” Bokuto asked you the day you came in to propose the idea to the teams, which doesn’t take much time at all, so you’re spent in the middle of this reunion between men who, in all their own ways, all know each other. High school volleyball can somehow make this world feel incredibly small.

“We met when he got hired. I went to Fukurodani.” You said flatly.

“Really?! Didja ever watch any of my games?! You know anyone from the team?”

“Your best friend, also my best friend?” A weak chuckle escaped you. “Aghaashi Keiji?”

His owl-like eyes went wide and he bursted into a fit of laughter, followed by some nostalgic stories similar to the day you and Akaashi went out for coffee, only they included him this time. You cared enough to keep some details in the back of your mind to tease Akaashi the next time you two meet. 

Your computer screen goes black from inactivity, snapping you out of your daydreams, which could be considered actual dreams, what with the late hour glaring at the corner of your monitor when you turn it back on again. 

There’s a singular pathetic light at the corner of your desk, in the corner of your pathetic cubicle, while the rest of the night outside your window is more warmly lit. The open air is likely buzzed from better office workers unlike yourself sipping sake. 

Meeting some alumni of your old high school had you thinking these past few days. Much more thinking than you’d like to do in the spaces where work had to be done. An old professor back in college, when you’d asked him why he chose what he did, said:

“I simply chose a mistake I could live with.”

You thought he was stupid. You took the advice, but young, possibly (re: definitely) arrogant, and fiery you made a deal with yourself. You’d never live with a mistake. You’d make your decisions and prove they were right and you’d see them through until the end.

But the thing about mistakes is they’re much like surprises. You don’t know what they are until you’ve ripped off the ribbon like a bandage, and after sifting through confetti, the wound spills of consequences and you’re sitting in its puddle. 

Your puddle looks like overtime and a trash can full of mediocre canned vending machine coffee. And it reeks of jealousy.

Stupid, petty jealousy and Kuroo Tetsurou’s cologne, and the JVA does not leave expense for jealousy. You know this enough because they did not leave expense for your perfect, seemingly seamless proposal. They don’t leave enough for you to feel, but they spark these feelings in you anyway and expect you to curb them so it’s not taking up the budget.

If Kuroo tried for people and he’s been trying since he was in high school, you wonder what you’ve been doing. 

It’s the caffeine you blame for these thoughts, so to deter them, you sit up and try to make better use of the energy in your veins, flowing with the anger in the torrents and bursting beneath your skin.

The hot rushing anger suddenly turns cold at the back of your neck. You scream and jump from your chair, turning around and ungraciously hitting the figure responsible with a flimsy folder.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” 

“Agh—!”

You didn’t think speaking, or even thinking of the devil was real, but here he is. Not a devil, but with what you’d imagine owns a similar smirk and irritating laugh. Kuroo’s spooked, from what you could tell from his heavy breaths, but he looks more amused if anything.

You chuckle yourself, half-heartedly, in the way a horror movie protagonist stares at the shadows. “I thought you went out drinking with the others.”

Once Kuroo’s settled from his laughing fit, he answers.

“Forgot something.”

He waves around a small pencil case, cylindrical and black cat themed with yellow eyes and a zipper to open where its head should be. A little brutal, but surprisingly cute and in his image. In his other hand, he holds the culprit of your mini panic: more cold mediocre canned vending machine coffee.

Kuroo places it on your desk and peeks at the spreadsheets on your computer screen.

“I heard from Bokuto that your meeting went well.” He says. “And I also heard the budget meeting didn’t go quite so well.”

You stare at the ground.

“Sorry for messing up your proposal.” It was pretty good, after all. With your edits, of course.

“Don’t apologize. I know it was ambitious.”

“That’s what the lady said. Then she threw it in the trash.”

Kuroo opens his mouth, closes it again. You’ve pulled him into your wallowing, in the dim light, and you almost feel a little bad. You hear yourself speak, nothing louder than a mutter, but in the dark, it reaches him.

“I haven’t made a mistake, right?”

Your breath hitches. You want to take it back, but it makes no sense to anyone else but yourself. There’s a beat of silence that’s much too loud.

“What got you into the job?” Kuroo suddenly asks.

You squint. “What’s gotten you into small talk?”

“Just humor me.”

Humor, you do, despite yourself.

“I watched Fukurodani’s match in the finals. 2013 Spring Nationals.”

It was a favor for your only friend, their starting setter at the time, though it might’ve been more of a favor to you. You couldn’t care much for volleyball, but you enjoyed the atmosphere and the feeling of school spirit. You could pretend your social life wasn’t as bland as it was normally, waving to Akaashi from the stands and getting perhaps one stare wondering how you two knew each other. Plus, the tickets were free to the student body.

Of all the sports you knew, volleyball looked so seamless. Connection by law of the basic rulebook. Three touches, none by the same man in a row; bump, set, and spike. You watched your school’s team fight, and they lost, yes, but that day, you knew you witnessed true connection. 

It looked easier than any other type of connection you knew. So you went into college for business, did well in your courses, and scored an entry-level position with the JVA as young as twenty-two all on your own, and that was enough.

Sure, you still weren’t a fan of people, but you liked numbers and clearing off a task list, and for a while, that was enough. Not until Kuroo walked through those doors, a brand new suit in tow. (He never told you, but you could tell.) And you realized it was never just numbers.

It was always going to be about people. People you just didn’t know if you could try hard enough for.

“I got into it because of that but,” you bite your lip. “I don’t know why I stayed.”

“I don’t think I was ever passionate about connecting people to the sport. I think I just saw that connection that day and wanted that for myself.”

This is a concerning amount of vulnerability in front of a co-worker you’ve spent hating in place of insecurity, and you’re not sure how you feel about unravelling this wound and laying the bandage in front of him. 

You swivel back in your chair, like ripples in a puddle. If you’ve already accepted this as a mistake, is this one that you want to live with?

Kuroo leans over your desk. Maybe it’s the low light and blue gleam, but his feline gaze isn’t quite so sharp at this hour. 

“You don’t want to quit, do you?”

You blink. “Not really.”

He hums. 

“You know, it’s our job to help people learn to love volleyball. For me, I always just liked the feeling when I knew people saw it the way I do.”

He looks at you then, that gentle feline-like gaze.

“You can learn to love volleyball. Doesn’t matter how much time it takes. Trust me, it’ll get easier after that.”

And maybe it’s the low light and the caffeine, and the soft way he looks at you, but you want to believe him. And maybe, mistakes, like wounds, will heal in time and become appreciated scars. They are mistakes all the same, but the skin won't be as tender.

It’s then that you realize something, and make a small update to your little mental file.

You don’t hate Kuroo Tetsurou.

You don’t. 

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And you do listen to him. Trust him. It’s more learning than loving at this stage. In your mind and chest, in your heart, you’re conjuring up something similar. 

The numbers are easier than the people, but the people are fun, or at the very least, entertaining. You return to the training centers in Osaka and Shizuoka regularly to keep the teams updated, and they pull you in for some drills regardless of your work wear.

You trade your own stories about Akaashi with Bokuto. You trade passes with Hinata, and no matter how terrible you are, he’s quite the gentle teacher. Suna sends you the funny videos he’s always recording through Instagram and you find the drinks that you share with Kuroo and these men taste sweeter than caffeine and go down easier than any of the evenings you’ve spent with the people from the office.

You don’t love volleyball as much as they do, but you think it’d be an incredible thing to inspire the same love in others. Great news for you, because that’s been in your job description for the past two years. Everything you learn laces your presentations and assignments with something fresh, and it even gets you in a couple rooms and meetings with more important executives, not nearly as irritating as before. 

Your supervisor says there’s something different about you. The way you carry yourself these days. You simply reply that you’ve made some new friends.

After a while, closer to the season’s start, you learn to bring an extra change of clothes, or if you can’t or forget, dress in more casual than business on the days you go out to see Raijin or MSBY. When you finally escape from their grips and let them (re: make them, because your job is dependent on their success) go back to their regular training, Kuroo is at the door.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was in the area with the other division,” replies Kuroo.

He takes out a tablet and taps three times. Running fingers through his dark hair, it tussles out the way to show both of his eyes clearly.

“I’ve got some bad news and some better news.”

“Just call it all news and say what you have for me.”

“Well, the exhibition match isn’t gonna happen when we want it. It could be as far as until after the Olympics.” You hold your breath. Kuroo continues. “But the proposal isn’t rejected. We can still work at it.”

“And what’s the better news?”

“I got the season match-ups before anyone else could get their grubby hands on it, and guess who’s the kick-off?”

You tilt your head, reaching a hand for the tablet, which he gives with a small smile—almost giddy, like a little boy. Your eyes widen.

────────

So, EJP Raijin v. MSBY Black Jackals isn’t scheduled to happen when it should, but the folders are kept open by yours and Kuroo’s sheer will and some smooth, silvered words, and the nickname “Monster Generation” actually sticks. It’s plastered on all of the articles and flyers and Kuroo’s definitely going to lord that over you for as long as you live. 

In place of your paused proposal, the first match of the season between the latter and the Schweiden Adlers takes center stage, and you greedily capitalize on its success like you’re in America instead of Miyagi Prefecture and three tiers higher than your job title.

Hinata Shoyo makes an incredible debut, and you’re reminded of the finals back in your third year of high school, as you watched man fly. Fly, he does. Not just him, but Hoshiumi Kourai is absolutely incredible, and there seems to be a new light in Kageyama Tobio and Ushijima Wakatoshi’s gleaming eyes. 

There’s new light and love and just now, you think you understand what Kuroo means when he talks about how volleyball makes him feel and what it feels like when others see it and feel it like he does.

You go to the Adlers’ section to get their contact information, and what you hear is Kageyama’s surprisingly adorable autograph, which leads to Kuroo dragging you to meet all his old friends and rivals, and somehow, it leads you into a crowded bar with both teams and a few others. 

“It’s true!” Kuroo exclaims. He’s sat across from you while you’ve been squished between two Karasuno alumni and old friends of his: Sugawara and Sawamura, who insists you call him Daichi.

“Really?” You huff through your nose, leaned over the table and a few empty shot glasses. “You’re not speaking from a previous life or anything?”

“Oh my god—” Kuroo scoffs, appalled. “How hard is it to believe I was a shy kid? Really, I couldn’t even look Kenma in the eye!”

He turns to Daichi on your right, who’s still howling with laughter. 

Sugawara giggles. “You know, I’d believe you if not for that. Everyone’s a little shy as a kid, but Kenma? Worse than Kenma?” 

“Oh, come on!”

It’s all fake anger and mirth in Kuroo’s gaze, hazy laughter ringing through your ears. His smooth dark hair, which he’s just revealed to you as bedhead—and you believe that as much as you believe the stories of his shy childhood—is tussled unevenly in his hands.

“We should play volleyball again, sometime,” Daichi finally says, settling down and sipping from his drink.

“Oh, really?” Competition sparks in Kuroo’s smile. “You sure you can take it, penalty king?” 

Sugawara interjects their taunting. “Let me start working out again first! I’m not built like you two!”

Kuroo flexes his muscles to you three through his suit, making the other two men roll their eyes. You playfully gag and turn away, distracting you from the heat converging across your cheeks. It’s the alcohol, and you try taking another sip to dispel the heat with a stronger burn. When you lift your head, you hear his flexing accidentally knock Bokuto in the head with his biceps.

“You know, that reminds me,” Sugawara turns back to Kuroo. “I never expected you to go into business. I really thought you’d go pro too!”

Kuroo tilts his head up from his drink. “Really?”

“Oh, don’t gas him up,” you groan. “He gets enough of that at work already.”

The man across gives you a look, somewhat pitiful, and you look back, sticking out your tongue.

“He does dress more like a conman now, though! You’ve always had that look to you,” Daichi remarks.

“No, I don’t!”

And the bar bursts with laughter again, buzzing. 

Kuroo’s soft—like this. Surrounded by people you know he loves more than anyone else in the world. That, he doesn't have to tell you. You could always tell things like that. In the way he rubs Bokuto’s back before he runs out of the bar, keeling from a speed drinking competition with Miya Atsumu. In the way he continues to taunt Daichi and who he playfully calls “Suga-chan”, and it’s all for naught because there’s no malice laced in his words or his soft feline-like gaze. In the way he brought you canned coffee with that same look you forget how many nights ago.

It’s all love. All in the way he just is.

He hears Bokuto gagging outside and runs to the door, and all you can do is smile and take another sip.

In that way, too. And in—

And—oh.

Oh.

“Alright,” Kuroo soon enters the bar again with Bokuto hanging off one of his shoulders, mouth washed and exhausted. “We’ve gotta get this guy back to the hotel. You coming with?”

You blink. Slow. It’s the alcohol, you tell yourself.

“Yeah,” you pause. “Yeah.”

The early winter breeze washes over your skin, sobering you up a little more. Kuroo makes you take Bokuto’s other side, and you both give each other a look and share a laugh when you nearly collapse beneath his muscle. The pair of you fall into a rhythm after getting used to it though, walking to the street corner where the car will be waiting.

“I never realized how much I missed them,” says Kuroo. He looks at Bokuto, who’s half-asleep mumbling drowsily, then at you. It makes your breath hitch.

That’s the thing about connection. “They’re here. They’ll always be.”

Kuroo smiles at your response, and his laughter, softer this time than in the bar, sings with the sounds of the night life.

God, you need to see Akaashi. Maybe invite him for drinks instead of coffee this time.

────────

Unfortunately, Akaashi is still in Tokyo. You’re still in Sendai. Fortunately, phones exist.

“You knew this was gonna happen?” You deadpan.

Akaashi mumbles through the speaker. “Yeah. That’s how Kuroo is. He was gonna get you one way or another.”

“Which way was this?”

“Not exactly what I expected, but it was one of the possibilities—the way you constantly complained about him to me.”

He pauses. “Are you complaining?”

You think back to the bar. That overtime night at the office. The laughter, the coffee, the alcohol, the night and the moonlight against his skin and what can’t possibly be bedhead because how does it look that soft?

“No,” you laugh.

“Then enjoy it, but make sure to say something when it feels right.”

────────

The next meeting you’re in, on a warmer Monday morning, it’s closer and closer to the Summer Olympics, and the conference room is full of names you’d have only dreamed of. The national team selection is being shown to you in its own branded packet. Color and cardstock, this time. You trace the names on the sheet beneath your fingers.

Most of them are men you’ve been acquainted with, some you’ve seen on the regular on your trips to Osaka and Shizuoka, some you’d gotten to know that night after the Jackals-Adlers. Most of them are people you’ve connected with, one way or another, and the names or faces you don’t know, you’re excited to make connections with. 

This time, it's actual connection, like that winter afternoon in your third year of high school at Tokyo Arena. For the first time in your life, it's the connection you've always wanted to make.

The meeting ends later than you expect, shaking hands and adding a few new numbers to your work phone. You don't mean to be proud, but really, it's getting a bit much at this point. Out the door, amidst the small crowd, you move down a quieter hall.

Kuroo’s waiting for you in one of the break rooms, still not enough seniority to have joined that meeting, though you can vividly picture he would’ve been buzzing in his seat. He's even doing it now, tapping two fingers against the table.

The roster would be going public soon, and all who were chosen were already notified, so you were told it’s not completely confidential. Technically. But Kuroo can keep his mouth shut. 

You hand him the papers wordlessly. He scans it carefully, and you watch his eyes move slowly from one side to the other. Across the table, you can't tell where he's actually looking. You think he’s pausing at certain names, and his breath hangs in the air for some special ones. What you believe are special anyway, the way his gaze widens and glimmers and the grin he just can’t hold back turns dopey and boyish. 

Proud. That’s more like it.

“It’s all you wanted,” you say.

He finally speaks, breathless. “Yeah, it is.”

Kuroo looks up at you, and his dopey, boyish grin turns smug. More annoying than proud. “And guess what the Official Olympic Committee is calling it and all subsequent advertising?”

“What?”

“The Monster Generation,” he gloats. “And even more branding all to do with describing them as monsters.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“It was genius, thank you.”

You roll your eyes, playful.

“Their first practice is next week,” you sing-song.

“Yeah?”

“Guess who got invited to supervise?”

────────

Ajinomoto NTC isn’t new to most of the members, many of whom you learn had gotten invited to one of the Youth Intensives back in high school. It shouldn’t be so grand, but the tall ceilings, high tech equipment, fills you with something new. A light feeling, rushing against your clothes like a soft breeze.

It’s new to you and Kuroo, of course you’d be amazed.

“The floor isn’t hardwood,” Kuroo mutters. It’s a fact he should’ve known by now, been to more professional matches than he could count, played at Nationals with the same synthetic ground, but it seems to fill him with wonder all the same.

“Tobio-kun said the same thing the first time we were here!” Atsumu laughs, walking in from behind you two. The rest of the team follow close behind, and the young suns of the bunch (it’s just Bokuto and Hinata) nearly bounce off the walls, while the others carry laughter and determination in their stride.

You’re supposed to be in the corner with the other staff, taking notes, keeping track of stats, things that are part of your job. Information you can relay back to the JVA and the duties you were sent here to do. 

That lasts about until after lunch. 

Maybe it’s the enthusiasm of new beginnings that keeps the energy levels just as high as they were in the morning, but it’s worryingly infectious, and it’s reaching your co-worker. 

“Play a set with us!” Bokuto pleads, pulling at Kuroo’s dress shirt sleeves. 

He looks at Coach Hibarida for aid, who only looks at the two like they’re children with a content smile. Kuroo then turns to you, and it’s definitely the enthusiasm infecting you as well, and you return his glower with a teasing thumbs up. He doesn’t say “fuck you” but his eyes communicate something close.

All of Kuroo’s further excuses are dismissed. Clothes? About the same size as Ushijima-san, Yaku deflects like a perfect serve receive, shoving him into the locker room. Unfit? The team takes one look at him and the shoulders that want to escape his suit vest, says bullshit, and pulls him onto the court. 

It’s all fake denial from Kuroo. You can tell. He’s practically vibrating in his borrowed volleyball shoes like he’s a middle school boy playing volleyball for the first time again. (You punch his arm when you notice he’s a little too proud about being able to share clothes with Young Cannon Ushijima Wakatoshi. Your knuckles sting a little and your face goes warm when you realize there’s a reason he’s able to fit the clothes of the young cannon.)

You move your chair closer to the court to watch, admittedly a little curious to see Kuroo play. For someone presumably out of practice, it takes less than a few rallies for Kuroo to fall into place. You’d never admit this to him, but you understand what Sugawara meant when they thought he’d go pro.

He loves volleyball in this way too. Loves in the way the rest of these men have dedicated their lives to the sport, but in a suit and once, years ago, in a jersey. How his eyes gleam getting a quick set from Kageyama, and the setter’s eyes shimmer in turn. Kuroo’s sprinting across the court, receiving serves and spikes from the best in the country, occasionally blocking the nastiest hitters to step foot on this linoleum ground, and it feels no different than a hardwood high school gym. As sweat drips from his forehead and he takes a glance at you, you think this is one of the few times you’ve seen true, unbridled joy on his face. It looks gorgeous on him.

“Don’t you dare tell him this, but I really do miss him.” Yaku says, standing beside your chair and taking a sip from his water bottle.

He introduced himself to you just this morning as Nekoma’s and Kuroo’s former libero. Kuroo introduced him as the infamous Demon Senpai and consequently had his ass kicked by a man no taller than five-foot five. You didn’t know if the moniker “demon” was warranted, but watching their banter had you see some resemblance. 

You didn’t have the pleasure of meeting him until this spring. Apparently, he’d been playing in foreign leagues as young as twenty-one, over in the snowy cities in Russia. He speaks again, and the words slip so gently beneath his breath, you don’t think they’re for you.

“I loved having him in front of me.”

You blink. “He’s still here.”

“Yeah,” Yaku smiles, yet his cheekbones seem like they’re held up with a little more weight. Bittersweet, how his voice lays on his tongue, and ever so heavier. “I know.”

────────

In the end, they definitely played more than one set, and Kuroo’s thoroughly sweated through Ushijima’s athleisure and volleyball shoes. They weren’t new or truly beloved, the spiker reassures, but Kuroo takes them with him in a bag to wash and return at the next practice. Beneath his smooth words and an exhausted smile, you catch the enthusiasm at the possibility of the “next time”. 

You glance at the training center behind as you leave, and the lights of the surrounding city remind you that the night is far from over. Just as you think that, you hear a little commotion from the men walking in front of you.

“No drinks!” Iwaizumi, newly hired trainer, warns. There’s some groans in the crowd, but they concede.

“We could at least get dinner,” Komori offers. “Anyone we’re missing?”

“Kageyama and Hinata are still in there, but they promised Hibarida-san they’d help close up,” sighs Suna.

Ushijima comments. “Hoshiumi-san is still inside as well.”

“I’ll check in with them,” you say. You hadn’t had the chance to get Hoshiumi’s number, not at the game or at the Jackadlers—nickname coined by yours truly—afterparty. 

You walk back into the sounds of court squeaking and Hoshiumi’s high voice scolding Kageyama and Hinata, possibly getting a little raspy from doing it for so long.

“I thought you guys grew out of this!” Hoshiumi chides, both hands on his hips. Kageyama and Hinata are practicing their signature combination, which you know they’ve been doing for a while, blue-and-yellow balls decorating the floor of the other side of the gym and the complete opposite of helping Hibarida close up. For a moment, you wonder if it was mistake or Japan’s greatest weapon on the committee’s part to have them be on the same side of the court again.

The shorter spiker sighs when the duo insist on five—”No, ten!”—more minutes. By his age in comparison, you suspect Hoshiumi’s grown rather doting towards his teammate and longstanding rival. 

“They really try harder than anyone else,” you chuckle into your fist.

Hoshiumi sighs, coupled with a tired grin that softens his features. While he does agree, the flames of rivalry that glint in his gaze tell you he won’t be left behind. You suspect it’s the same for the rest of the team.

“It’s because we love it so much that it’ll only get even harder.”

Once Hoshiumi’s had it, and you think perhaps these demon-like qualities come with being under 180 centimeters, you leave your response to that unsaid and unheard. You’ve learned something. Just today, this past month, these last quarters. You’ve learned about connection all in the way you watched Kuroo play. Bump, set, and spike. Connection in the way Hoshiumi takes the dynamic duo by the ears—somewhat affectionately, what you suspect is his love language, anyway—and helps them clean up.

It’s precisely because of that love that you’ll be able to persevere. 

────────

You don’t join the team for dinner, and surprisingly, Kuroo doesn’t either. Then you get ten more emails sent to you, and you hear ten more notifications coming from Kuroo’s suit pants that next morning and it doesn’t surprise you much at all.

But these, like all the things that have been shoved in your hands and sent to your emails, belong to you now. Volleyball, in some way, belongs to you now. It wouldn’t be polite to not take care of them. Gently polish and refine, as one does with a volleyball and other precious things.

You don’t ride the bullet train to Osaka and Shizuoka anymore, instead, you circle a few buses until you get to Ajinomoto Training Center and supervise their training every day. And supervise is but a strong word—Hibarida has asked you to leave the room multiple times a day so they don’t get distracted trying to impress you. Kuroo joins a few more sets during their free practice, less than before due to the work piling on your backs, but enough to exhaust him and keep his friends happy. He returns the clothes and shoes to Ushijima and starts bringing in his own, and you’ve even caught him scrolling online stores on your breaks looking for new pairs. 

Eventually, every day turns into every other week to none for Kuroo, much to Bokuto’s dismay, but it can’t sting the team for long. Their first match is dawning over the horizon. You try not to let it sting you either. Your tasks still need taking care of and there’s three more campaigns for some of the national team members you’ve just been assigned. You take a sip of canned coffee from the vending machine at the training center, which is surprisingly better than the one at the office, and continue working at your laptop.

And if there are two extra tabs open, one for a nicer sports store with volleyball shoes recommended by the team, and a few fancy restaurants in this area of Tokyo, including the place the players went to after that first day of practice that you and Kuroo missed, no one knows. No one sees.

────────

“I am so sorry, Keiji,” you exclaim, crashing through the doors of the small cafe without regard for the rest of the occupants. 

At a table near the entrance, there’s two new guests included in your coffee hour, which you’re fifteen minutes late to: Bokuto, and a tall, bespectacled blond you’re told is another old friend from high school and in Tokyo for the matches coming up.

Akaashi waves his hand around in reassurance, patting the seat beside him.

You sit down, reaching a hand for the blond and introducing yourself.

“Tsukishima Kei,” he responds. “You work with Kuroo-san?”

“Does he have to be the common link between everyone?” You groan, though lighthearted.

Akaashi smiles into his mug of coffee. “He’s quite the charmer.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes and you think you’ve found a kindred spirit in the mind behind those glasses. Bokuto catches that look and puts his arm around his shoulders.

“Oh, don’t act like you weren’t charmed too, Mr. “Just A Club” Sendai Frogs Blocker! Why didn’t you tell us?!”

“Congratulations,” Akaashi says. “I hear they’re about to breach Division 1. It’ll go far under your guidance.” 

“It’s not under my guidance—agh!” Tsukishima tries to spit out the words beneath all of Bokuto’s smothering. He gets something out, and you empathize with his attempts. You knew how it felt to be carrying all that muscle.

“You’re still the cornerstone blocker, right? Learned against the best around!” Bokuto proudly puffs out his chest. 

“Kuroo-san?” Tsukishima smirks, and the spiker’s face drops. The words leave his mouth too quickly for Akaashi to record the indirect admission.

“Ah, that’s where I’ve heard your name! At the Jackadlers’ party,” you suddenly realize. “Hinata sings your praises, you know?”

“Tell me something I don’t hear everyday.”

His scorn comes out all too soft. A light flush dusts his cheeks, no matter how bitter his tongue.

Akaashi huffs a noise. “Jackadlers?”

“The Black Jackals and the Adlers.” you explain, pulling out your phone and a few posts. “I made it up, you know. Convinced the Enaga Fumi and her intern to start using it in their articles. It’s going around on social media.”

Akaashi nods, then looks back at the other two. Tsukishima, who finally escaped from Bokuto’s coos, only to have to comfort him for hurting his feelings.

“You know who made up the nickname Monster Generation and convinced the JVA to put it all over their branding?” The former setter goads, and the other two figure it out just from his mirthful smile.

“That was not his idea.” Tsukishima deadpans in denial.

“It was,” you confirm. “Pisses me off as much as you.”

“What I hate even more is that he’s throwing that fact around every chance he gets.” You look back at Akaashi, and you make sure to ask him when the last time he even saw Kuroo was that he’d be able to tell him. Knowing their history, it’s probably been conceptualized as far back as their mindless conversations in high school, when all those players first made their mark all those years ago.

“Speaking of Kuroo, he was supposed to come today,” Akaashi comments. “I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.”

You hum, a finger to your chin. “You and I both. I think he got put on the front lines for marketing the first match, and I honestly haven’t seen him since. Still, it shouldn’t be that hard for him to answer his phone.”

With a frown, you turn to Akaashi and sigh, “I’ll try to catch him at work.”

────────

And catch him, you try. And Kuroo tries not to blame you, but you are being terribly obvious.

It helps that his superiors keep pulling him left and right, tacking more work and reports on his desk with a smile, and Kuroo feels everything except joy. It keeps him away from you and your invitations to go back to the training center and watch the team again. 

Sure, his phone keeps blowing up. Not just from work, but from many of the others too. If not for their match this weekend, he’s sure Koutarou would be texting him every hour, on the hour. Akaashi’s invited him out multiple times, on his dime, and though free food and drinks are tempting and the exact things he needs to take the edge off, his mental to-do list shields his brain from getting any respite. (And it’s not even food and drink he needs, it’s just Akaashi.) Even Kei and Kenma have sent him a text or two, and lord knows how difficult it is for them to look at their messages.

They wouldn’t blame him, would they? You wouldn’t blame him. 

Of course, he’d take that promotion. 

He was pulled into one of the bigger offices, its own room made for one person. He was given the position and the sizable pay raise from his work in the aftermath of the Jackadlers—he saw Enaga’s articles, he’ll give you credit—game, and was promised even more if the marketing for this weekend’s match went well and he took it. 

Now, a small lamp flickering in the corner of his desk, and his monitor screen about to go black from how long he’s spent staring and not working, he wonders if it was worth it. It’s close to midnight. The skyscrapers outside of the JVA’s building replace the stars, blinding the corners of his vision and giving him a small headache. 

Closing his eyes, the rest of his senses come forth. There’s footsteps behind him. Yours, he’d know blind. The assertive way your presence struck the earth, or the gray carpet at least. You’re probably trying to pull the same trick he did all those months ago, and he’s proven right when cold metal presses the back of his neck. It doesn’t surprise him as bad as it did you back then, but he does jolt. A little. 

Kuroo opens one eye. You place the canned coffee on the desk, right next to his black cat-themed pencil pouch. He vaguely remembers you mentioning that the vending machine coffee at Ajinomoto NTC tasted better than the vending machines here, which you would’ve followed up with an invitation to return when you were ungraciously interrupted by another meeting he had to run to. 

He opens both eyes when he realizes his monitor had turned off. You don’t say anything, leaning over the desk and lit by the dim, yellow lamp. The edges of you are warm, soft against the dark office and skyscraper-lit night through the windows. Your expression is anything but, but he sees the softness in your features anyway. He can always find it. Things like that.

“They’re asking about you,” you say, finally.

“Kou?”

“All of them.”

He takes a breath. “I figured.”

“So why are you not answering?” You badger, firm.

“There’s still more to do,” replies Kuroo, reaching for his mouse and clicking around to start the computer again. You place a hand over his, making his breath hitch. He hopes it isn’t heard over the tension, just as the warmth blooming across his body isn’t seen over the dark.

“How much more is there to do?” You fume, keeping an iron grip over his knuckles. “I’ve seen your work, you know?”

Kuroo stays quiet.

“I saw the campaign you did with Bouncing Ball. I saw you nudging sponsors and scholarships towards that high schooler on the roster. I see it all.”

God, of course you do. How does anything escape you? Nothing does. You’re in and out of the office, on the buses to the training center and on the bullet train to Osaka and Shizuoka, and you’re still getting all your assignments and presentations done on the hour sharp. You’re on your laptop and in the big meeting rooms he’s still not allowed in, and you’re—

Everything. He isn't.

“Can you just leave me alone?” He snaps, jerking his hand away and making yours return to your sides.

You scoff, jaw slack. Kuroo’s blood suddenly goes cold.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ve just been in a mood lately, and—”

“No, no,” you sigh, exasperated. “Don’t apologize. Just tell me what’s been up with you.”

Your hand moves to the desk, and it hits his nameplate. You blink, taking it and lifting it to your gaze as you read it over. 

“When did this happen?” You turn it over to him, like it’s not his nameplate and he hasn’t read it a million times on nights just like this, showing off the shiny new engraving. 

“Since I stopped going to the practices with you.”

A huff of disbelief escapes your throat. 

“That’s what it was,” you mutter. “You never told me you were team lead.”

“You never asked.”

“How was I supposed to—jeez, why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s all still new. It’s really only in name. I’m the youngest one in the group.”

“We’re the same age.”

“Exactly!” Kuroo adds, “but you’re so—”

He bites his lip, making you tilt your head.

“So…what?”

It’s now that he realizes you were probably thinking the same things that night of overtime as he is right now. Lit by this same light, staring out this same window and starless night. It’s that realization that finally grabs his thoughts out of his throat.

“I thought I was ready. I spent so many all-nighters for this, you know, and I knew this was what I wanted to do with volleyball in my life.”

“Then the proposal got put on hold, and everything was still technically fine, but it hit me. And work began piling up, and there’s so, so much more to this than just going around schools in Tokyo and holding workshops.”

He looks up at you. The monitor turns off again, and all your soft edges are warm once more.

“You saw me play with the guys, right? I was back in it. I was blocking some of the best in all of Japan! God, one set, I made Kiyoomi lose his damn mind. Sakusa Kiyoomi.” 

“They were talking about how much they missed playing with me, or playing against me. The ones I didn’t play back then wished they did when we were in high school and I wished I could’ve as well, and…”

He finally takes a breath. It heaves out of his lungs like burning rope, in and out of his throat and still trying to grip and pull something out he doesn’t yet want to release. Kuroo’s next words come out warbled and shamefully watery.

“I’m doing the right thing, right?”

Kuroo Tetsurou hasn’t wasted anything by trading his captain’s jersey for a suit, has he? The shadows or threads of fate haven’t looked down on him for moving their places, spending his nights in a college library now a corporate office instead of a gym, and sweat, and synthetic ground?

In teaching others how to love, he hasn’t lost his own, has he? He still loves volleyball, not as much as he did at eighteen, or at eleven when Tokyo and the world was so large and unfamiliar and volleyball was his everything and maybe, it’s not as everything as before, but volleyball knows how much he loves it, yes?

The people—Koutarou, Kei, Kenma, Nekoma, you, all of them—know how much he loves them, yes? Because he does. So damn much. Despite the diverging paths of life and fate, shadows and threads, despite everything, he does. He loves. More than anything he’s ever known. 

Even if he never returns to the court, he loves volleyball and everything that it gave him. How it blessed him and held him so gently. That, yes, connection can come in just three touches. Bump, set, and spike. Body, brain, heart. Connection is as simple as this and yet as complicated as can be, how it flows through his veins and the atoms that make up his blood and the oxygen within, but Kuroo won’t ever care about the technicalities because it’s brought him everything. 

He’s shown his love, hasn’t he? Don’t they know?

A tear falls down his cheek. Kuroo tells himself it’s the headache and sleep deprivation.

With all your soft edges, yellow light against your skin and warming the pads of your fingers, you wipe the wet salt away, hand lingering against his skin and his tussled bedhead. It doesn’t linger for so long, but the touch—yours—is phantom on his face. 

You lead the silence away with your voice, like a firefly on a summer’s night like this one, so unnatural in the middle of urban Tokyo. 

“I had a professor once say to me, when I asked why he did what he did,” you quote, “I simply chose a mistake I could live with.”

Kuroo squints.

“I thought he was stupid.”

He smiles, wetly. That sounds more like you.

“But,” you add. “I understood what he meant. Just recently. We’re all made of some bad decisions. The things we love will only hurt so much more, but that’s what it takes to love them with all our hearts.”

“You can decide the things, the mistakes if you will, that’ll feel easiest to carry. Or, you can carry what you want anyway, because you know it’ll be worth it. It’ll be worth it even if it hurts like hell because it’s yours.”

Kuroo finally looks up at you and you’re staring back. In the way your gaze softens, in the way your eyes are glassy too, just as his, he sees an emotion he’s not yet faced on you yet. He can’t give it a name, but it’s kindred. It belongs to you both. To this night, and it probably belongs to that last overtime night too, when the positions were switched and you were in the chair and he, on the desk and lit by another flickering lamp.

It looks gorgeous on you. If it’s on him too, somewhere in the glass of his gaze, Kuroo hopes you think the same.

Your voice turns light. “You know, you’re wracking your brain over these two things, but really, you’re just choosing between volleyball and volleyball, aren’t you?”

That seems to crack you up, lifting your shoulders with rejoice. “It’s all still volleyball, no matter which way you look at it.”

Your joy pulls out Kuroo’s own, squeezing his stomach with laughter, and the rest of the tears that laid in waiting fall still, but not from the emotion they were born to. When you’ve both settled down, he smiles. Smaller, soft.

“It’s still volleyball.”

────────

“So, who’s Oikawa Tooru?” You ask, turning to Tsukishima on your right. 

Kuroo’s sat on your left, with Akaashi to his, knuckles resting on your knee and branded with Team Japan all over him. He’s wearing Bokuto’s number 4 with Yaku’s number 17 underneath in case the former misses any spikes, and vice versa for the libero dare he botch a serve receive. 

“The most annoying bastard to live,” the blond responds. “I need those two idiots to crush him.”

That doesn’t answer your question in the slightest, but you find you don’t quite care. You wave around your flag and cheer when Japan and Argentina come out on the court, and a few of them spot you four in the stands and wave back. 

You’re not with them. You’ll never know what it truly feels like to stand on that court, behind the net and in that heat. You’ll always be in these stands, back in that winter afternoon in Tokyo Arena in 2013, and now. Kuroo won’t step onto it in the same way he did at eighteen. You both wear business casual, leaning towards business these days, and despite it all, this still belongs to you. 

This is still volleyball, and this is still yours.

This court, the shrill whistle, the cheers. Volleyball belongs to you both, not in the ways it did or could’ve before, but in all the ways it needs to. 

That’s all the both of you ever need.

────────

You pull at Kuroo’s dress shirt, pleading. “Come on, it’s important!”

“What’s so important we need to go back to the office again?” Kuroo tries tugging you off of him, looking back and forth between your insistent gaze and the Japan team, seconds from walking off to the restaurant without the pair of you.

“Very important!” You insist, “we can see them after, but I need to show you something!”

He sighs, allowing you to take his arm and drag him back to the JVA building. It’s all cleared out, association members partying just as you two are supposed to be tonight, but then he watches your eager eyes as you dig through your desk for the surprise you have prepared, and he thinks he can hold off on caring. Just for a second. 

“Alright, close your eyes,” you command, though you do so for him anyway, palm grazing over his eyelids. 

Kuroo concedes, holding out his hands. Something weighty and cardboard rests on his arms, and he nearly drops it when he realizes his muscles are too relaxed for the item you’ve given.

“Okay,” you finally say. “Open them.”

He looks down. He can tell as soon as he sees the box but he opens it anyway. They’re volleyball shoes.

State of the art, the same brand as all of the players on the national team, and in mature dark red and black detailing. He traces the material beneath his fingers, and looks up at you, somewhat giddy. The way you look at him feels so—everything.

Volleyball isn’t so everything anymore, but it still belongs to him. It might not take up his heart anymore, large as the moon and his frame, but it’s the smaller, precious things that are held most gently, aren’t they?

This, this moment, feels like everything. Everything he’s been given by you, and life, and volleyball, and he loves it with all his being. Instead of everything he's thinking, he says something else.

“You know how much these cost?”

You roll your eyes. “I know, jackass, I’m the one who bought them. On the recommendation of the best jumper we’ve met too.”

“Hinata-kun?”

“Hoshiumi.”

Kuroo gasps. “Traitor! Kou’s his teacher, you know!”

“What can I say? I became a fan.” He did have quite the highlight reel during the Argentina game, which Kuroo’s currently planning to edit and hopefully post in time. 

Kuroo jabs your arm playfully, setting the box down and smiling at you. You scoff in faux disbelief.

“That’s what you get for calling me a personality hire,” he says.

Your eyes widen. “Oh my god, how long have you been holding that in? Did that actually hurt your feelings?”

“Of course, it did! It’d hurt anyone’s!”

“Are you serious?” You chortle with amusement. “Wait, wait, wait, now I feel bad!”

“Now?” Kuroo huffs, but it’s all jest and false anger. He knows you can tell. “I was repeating it to myself in the mirror everyday before I came into work like it would curse you.”

“How could I have known? You replied to me all smug, like it never bothered you.”

“Well, I didn’t internalize it that bad. You told me to use it well.”

You think about those words, all that time ago, and maybe you should’ve taken your own advice much earlier. His, as well. All you do is connect. That’s what he said that day. 

“Use it, you did,” you say, breathing into the night.

It’s closer to midnight. The monitor sitting on your desk isn’t on, and neither is the small pathetic light in your cubicle. All that’s present is what little space lay between you and Kuroo, and this same feeling, present then, both times in this place, and now. Maybe, it's always followed you both. 

The sky is starless in the big city, but there’s constellations to be formed in the way everything has fallen into place to connect you both. And so, you take Kuroo’s tie, pulling him in, and letting his warmth seep into the empty spaces, and maybe you’d like to breathe, but not right now. 

He returns your kiss eagerly, pressing you up against your desk. There’s a moment, a silence where you both stare into the softness around the edges of your gazes, yours not warmed anymore without the dim light, but Kuroo’s is all hazel and honey and glowing, and then he kisses you again.

After you’ve indulged, and his tie comes a little loose, with your own clothes disheveled, you speak again.

“You’re incredible, Kuroo. No matter what you do from here on out. You know that, right?”

“Of course, I do.”

He repeats your words. “You know that yourself, yeah?”

“Of course.”

All you do is connect. Maybe connecting, in threes, in people, in heart, body, and mind, is all you both know how to do. 

Right now, it’s all you both want to do, for the rest of your lives.

note. there's a lot here. so much. i just want to say thank you to the user who asked if they could expand on the bl tropes headcanon in their own fic, which had me think about expanding the popular office worker kuroo headcanon, and it turned into this. somehow.

“i’ve never seen you so quiet,” kuroo chuckles, “cat got your tongue?”

“what would you want me to say?” you ask, voice peaking curiously at the end. it was a genuine question. you weren’t sure what he expected.

“anything,” he responded simply, “i like your voice.”

the silence continued within the walls of the closet, and you could faintly register the thrum of your heart beneath your chest. the air was tinted with a hint of the cologne he’d always worn, and unsaid secrets that begged to be shared.

“we should figure this out,” you began, “whatever this is.”

“i’ve been wanting that for a while actually.” his hand brushed your own, tangling his fingers into yours. “how long have we danced around it?”

“a while,” you laughed, “where do we even start?”

he shuffled slightly closer, his knees knocking against your own. “the day we met,” he smiled, “you were so genuine.”

“and you were insufferable.”

“hey! i was not!” he protested, “i wanted to see if you’d cave.”

you had caved. caved for his knowing grin, the light in his eyes, and the way he seemed to memorize your very presence.

“well i didn’t.” you said instead.

“come on, we’ll get nowhere if you’re this stubborn,” kuroo teased, reaching his hand to poke your cheek. “don’t get me wrong, i love you holding your ground, but i just want to hear it.”

“what? that i like you?” you laughed, “didn’t think you were one for sappy confessions.”

kuroo leaned forward, and even in the darkness, his eyes glowed with something you couldn’t quite place. “well….i’m not. but you’re different.”

you felt a little heat rise to the tips of your ears. “do you really think a little proximity is going to make me actually say it?”

his lips brushed the shell of your ear. “no, but i like you.”

you paused. you couldn’t believe what you’d heard. “say that again.”

“i like you y/n. for the way you put up with me and are someone who i can truly rely on. i have for months.”

you hesitantly reached for him and cupped his cheek. it was just as warm and solid as you’d imagined, and you whispered your reciprocation before gently brushing your lips with his.

he slowly leaned forward, placing his hand on your side and kissing you softly, as if you were a figment of his imagination came to life. his hands wandered to your cheek, and you found yourself pulling him closer.

his lips traveled onto your ear, nibbling softly and trailing his way down to your jaw. his lips met yours again, and you pressed into him, relishing in the small gasp he let out.

you could kiss him forever. he felt the same.

the door busted open.

“right times up lov— oh.”

kuroo pulled away with a smirk, only to meet the eyes of yaku who looked embarrassingly at the floor.

“that was definitely more than seven minutes,” kuroo grinned, wrapping his arm around you.

“oh yeah.” yaku nodded, “i expected this would happen, but didn’t actually prepare me for it.”

you simply laughed as you shot an apologetic smile at the libero and made your way out of the stupid closet that had finally resolved the lingering tension.

kuroo settled next to you, his fingers intertwined with yours. a look into his eyes told you everything words could not, and as he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, you knew in your heart that he’d meant every word.

you were his support, and he was yours, discovered by a closet rendezvous and the promise of yet another kiss.