"𝗪𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀" - 𝗞𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻

"Page 7"

🛸Song recommendation:
Say it - girl in red

Kenma had never been particulary good at handling his feelings.

He didn't really understand other people and avoided them where he could.
It was not that he hated them, he just felt uncomfortable in their presence for some reason.

And then there was Kuroo.

When they first met all these years ago, Kenma wanted to be as far away from him as from everybody else.

Well, it didn't work. Kuroo was annoying and somehow alway around him, not letting him have a minute to himself.
At first he kind of hated him for it but after a short time, he grew to love the boy.

Kenma thought that this had been the first time he really loved someone outside his family.
It was just that he loved him a little too much.

He was ten when he first stared at Kuroo's lips, just a quick question of how they would feel on his flashing through his mind.
When he came to know three years later, it was better than he could have imagined.

And now they were here.

Kenma was laying in the grass in his backyard, staring at the sunset once again.
He had always found it beautiful, how the colors seemed to play and swim with each other, just to slowly fade and dispappear, already excited for the next game.

He knew it was his fault.
And it broke his heart to know, making him want to hit a tree with his fists, screaming at himself to be brave and do the right thing for once, to get up and say the truth and finally end the pain for both if them, at least as much as he could.

But he didn't.
Kenma had told himself he'd do it when he first saw Kuroo again.
But in the hallway outside Karasuno's dressing room, he had only messed it up even more.

"I broke up with you because you chose fame over me."

It wasn't entirely a lie. Sometimes he had felt neglected when Kuroo was focusing on volleyball so much, always talking about the next game, the next fight.

He just didn't know that Kenma had had a fight of his own.

And Kenma was a hundret percent sure Kuroo hadn't meant for him to feel like he cared less.
Kenma had always had a certain insecureness, but none of that was Kuroo's fault.

But when he saw him these few weeks ago, he couldn't breathe. He had stared at the floor while he could feel his throath closing, his head feeling dizzy.
And most of all, his damn heartbeat.

Kuroo had grown even more beautiful.
Kenma had watched every single one of his games on TV for two years.
And yet standing in front of him had knocked out the air of his lungs.

Before Kuroo, Kenma never could have imagined how powerful being in love was.

And he couldn't think, couldn't breathe, just panicked.
In that moment he was convinced that if he told Kuroo the truth, he'd walk away.
He'd scream at him for destroying their relationship for "selfless" reasons and turn his back on Kenma.

So he told him the first thing which came to his mind.
Kenma knew Kuroo would try to find a way to fix his assumed mistakes.

He could see it in the way Kuroo looked at him and in all the little poems he had found in his locker over the last weeks and kept carefully in a glass under his bed.
His heart had sung the first time he had read those lines, pressing the piece of paper to his heart, wishing for the world to let him stay in his little bubble.

But Kenma was still scared.
He didn't know if Kuroo had noticed how weird he acted. How torn he felt inside when all he wanted was to throw himself into Kuroo's arms while his brain was begging him to push away his love and let him live a happy life.

Because life with Kenma would always be difficult.

Sometimes he looked at Kuroo and prentended they were still younger and happily in love, no distance or secrets, just pure love and sappy smiles.

And everytime he was snapped out of his daydreams he had to keep himself from crying, closing his eyes until the heaviness dissolved.

"You should just tell him.", Kenma told himself every time. "He'll understand. He still loves you, maybe. It'll be okay."
But he couldn't say it.

Because Kuroo would be disappointed, raged and ask the same questions over and over again: Why? Why did he have to leave? Why couldn't Kenma just tell him before? It would have made everything so much easier. Why did Kenma always have to be so selfish, not including Kuroo in decision that certainly played a role?

"Because I wanted you to be happy.", Kenma whispered, tearing single blades of grass when he formed fists with his hands, biting his lip in an attempt not to start crying.

The truth though, was that Kuroo wasn't. He had said it himself and Kenma could see it with every breath Kuroo took.
He had messed up more than he thought he had.

Kenma loved him. He loved him and he had thought of him every day for these two years they had been apart. He had watched Kuroo's face on TV looking for a sign, his heart skipping a beat everytime he smiled and clenching the next at the thought that Kuroo would never smile at him like that again.

But here he was again, lying and leading him on, pulling him close and pushing him away the next second.
God, how he hated himself.

"I'm going to tell you, Kuroo.", he promised. "Just not today. But I'll tell you and this time, you're going to decide for yourself."

He had been selfish.
Trying to do what's best, but still selfish.

Kenma just needed time. A bit more time to be more stable, to prepare himself for the inevitable.

Maybe Kuroo would hate him and that would be more than Kenma could take.

Or maybe Kenma would recieve a poem.
Forgiveness and understanding.

One was allowed to dream.