#kenjen

"it was dark and i was over until you kissed my lips and you saved me" - Kenji kissing Ben's knuckles in s4

"MY HANDS THEY WERE STRONG BUT MY KNEES WERE FAR TOO WEAK TO STAND IN YOUR ARMS WITHOUT FALLING TO YOUR FEET" - Ben's injury

"but there's a side to you that i never knew never knew" - KENJI ABOUT BEN HIDING THAT BROOKLYNN WAS ALIVE

"i set fire to the rain" - FIRE MOTIF IS VERY BEN

"when i'm laying with you, i could stay there, close my eyes, feel you here, forever, you and me together, nothing is better" - THEM!!!!

and probably more lol

i haven't actually done a headcanon post in AGES, i had to go through old notebooks for this lmao. these are mostly set during and after jwct era:

-they danced around their feelings for a long time when they got back to america. between the media stalking them, adapting back to not running for their lives again, long-distance friendships, and just the mortifying ordeal of developing feelings for your best friend, it took them little more than a full year to admit they wanted to be more than best friends.

-they did happen to visit each other a lot during this period, though. they live the closest to each other (14 hours away, which is apparently little considering where the others live. the us terrifies me), and when they weren't in their homes, they were at sammy's ranch in texas, so they hung around together a lot.

-their favorite spot is one of the hills near kenji's camper, because that's where they had their first kiss.

-kenji made the first move. he apologized almost instantly and started heading home in shame but ben stopped him and kissed him again when he realized that they felt the same way.

-they still laugh about how oblivious they were sometimes ("i drove 14 hours to see you right before my finals week because it was the anniversary of your dad's death and you said you were feeling bad, how did you not notice" "oh sorry, i was too busy aligning all my breaks from work with yours so i could meet you in texas")

-yaz is the first person to find out that they're dating because ben calls her in a hurry that same night.

-kenji taught ben how to rock climb: ben was struggling with heights for a while after going back home (i hc he had acrophobia after the island and although he worked on it for a long time, he still struggles a little with it), and asked kenji to teach him so he could work on facing that fear again. all the time spent together on those lessons actually helped them realize just how down bad they were for the other.

-ben still isn't too fond on rock climbing, but they both LOVE hiking. it helps them clear their minds.

-when they're at sammy's, visiting bumpy and smoothie, they sometimes lie down in the grass at night and stargaze. kenji likes hearing ben ramble about the planets and constellations he knows about (space nerd <3)

-they once hired a professional photographer to take a family picture of them, bumpy and smoothie.

-when ben's on finals, kenji makes sure to send a carefully selected meme and a new picture of bumpy or smoothie everyday so he doesn't go insane

-ben has a special ringtone for kenji, in case he needs to call him in the middle of the night after a nightmare.

-they actually went to MCI together a few times before the government closed its doors. ben tried to keep his heart from skipping a beat whenever they visited the desert biome.

-ben told kenji about his crush on him back in nublar once, when they were drunk. none of them remember talking about it by the next day, and it's never brought up again until ben takes kenji to his first dinner with his family, where one of ben's cousins tells him "finally, it was embarrassing watching him pine over you all these years" when she finds out they're dating. kenji's reaction is somewhere along the lines of "aw babe, you had a crush on me, that's embarrassing" "we're dating" "still"

-kenji initially planned to tell mrs. bowman about ben over dinner, but she guessed it almost the second ben walked through the door with him. safe to say that she's really happy for them.

-ben enjoys collecting cds and burning his own mixtapes. when he realized he was starting to like kenji as more than a friend again, he burned a cd with songs that made him think of him. kenji found it in ben's van while on a roadtrip to texas. kenji made him a playlist in return.

-they like going to the gym together.

-kenji's contact picture for ben is them holding smoothie together. ben's contact picture for kenji is him being pushed to the ground by bumpy.

-whenever ben notices that kenji's stressed, he lies down next to him so he can play with his hair.

-they bingewatch sitcoms together all the time. you name it, they've probably already seen it.

-they also both really like doctor who. i have good reasons for this.

-kenji LOVES giving ben forehead kisses. he doesn't care that it's impractical because of how much taller ben is, he adores it.

-them being a couple does not stop them from bickering at all. sammy says they behave like an old married couple despite how little time they've been actually dating.

-after ben graduates and they've been dating long, they move together into a bigger house near that same area in colorado. their real dream is to move somewhere that's more of a middle point between california and texas, but for now the area's alright for both of them to keep working.

-none of them talk about marriage much, but kenji has a ring hidden deep inside one of his drawers in case he ever decides to go ahead with it, and ben has already talked to mrs. bowman about it just in case.

-as they get older, kenji brings up to ben the idea of having kids. they both agree on adopting a kid, since kenji himself was adopted and would like to be that supportive figure that mrs. bowman was for him for another child.

-before, though, they become foster parents for a while, and that's how a four-year-old aaron comes into the picture, who they end up formally adopting. (i might make a separate post about aaron because i've thought about him a lot he's so precious)