You Are My Shelter

Epilogue

8 years later

Kenma breathed in, breathed out. The air condensed in front of his eyes, floating away in little white clouds. The thought that it had been literal years since he had last put a step past the threshold in front of him felt weirdly alright and surreal at the same time.

For a single heartbeat, he hesitated, something in him trying to hold him back from entering, but he dismissed it. He had a reason as to why he had come here after all this time of no contact.

The hallway lay quiet before him, surprisingly similar to when he had last seen it. Plain and simple, a drastic difference to their hallway at home with all the pictures and Kuroo's current overload of Christmas decoration. They had never thought much of this western festivity. In contrast, Kenma had the feeling Kuroo's Christmas spirit only grew bigger each year—not that he really minded it; it was cute to see his long grown-up friend act like he was back to being an excited little child—even if Kenma would never admit that.

Carefully, Kenma closed the door and pulled off his shoes, the sounds from the TV drowning out the noise he made. It wasn't that he tried to avoid his parents—a little part of him even was curious how they would react to seeing him here, what they would say—but all in all it would probably make things way easier if he avoided the direct confrontation.

Without bothering to announce his presence, he directly turned towards the staircase. It was a strange feeling walking up the steps to the room that had once been his own—maybe still was his own—after not entering this house for so long, but Kenma had better things to do than thinking about the past.

He wondered if his parents had changed anything about his room. Did they store his stuff away and reused the space for other things? Kenma wouldn't put it past them to do that, but it would make things a lot harder for him.

Relieved, he found his room still filled with his own stuff. Even though his parents had rearranged a few things, tidied up a little and used the free space to store things they didn't need anymore, it was a little like stepping into the past. Circumventing the old ironing board that had been placed right in the middle of the room, Kenma stepped to the closet and pulled open one of the lower drawers. After nearly a decade, Kenma prayed he didn't misremember where he hid the little box—but the drawer was empty. Cursing under his breath, he opened another and another one, even the doors to where he had stored his clothes, but it looked like his parents had cleared out everything.

There was a small spark of resentment at the thought that they got rid of his stuff this easily, but he pushed it aside; there were more important matters right now. Kenma cursed himself for procrastinating going back to his parents house until the very last minute to get his Christmas present for Kuroo. He had no idea where he could get something else on Christmas Eve that Kuroo would like.

Just to be sure, Kenma crouched down to look under the naked bed frame, but the box was neither there nor on the shelf or his old desk. Contemplating on what to do now, he leaned against the closed doors of his closet. Awesome. That's what he got for not giving it to Kuroo straight away.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard steps on the staircase. Pushing himself from the ground, he stayed silent, waiting for the steps to cease again—but they didn't. Instead, the door to his room opened and his mother slowly pushed her head inside.

She looked different now, smaller, older. Her hair had gotten a lot more silver strands and there were wrinkles around her eyes that Kenma didn't remember being there.

Keeping his eyes on his mother, watching, he tried to keep his face as passive as possible. Not even the obvious sentiment of avoiding this confrontation did he let show—even though he was fairly certain that not saying anything when he had entered the house in the first place was a rather obvious give away.