𝘼𝙇𝙇 𝙊𝙁 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 // 𝙠𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙤 𝙩.

8.

"how weird it was when i started talking about ln yesterday?"

kuroo couldn't keep it inside for any longer. he would if he could, really, that wasn't something he wanted to talk about in the slightest.

"you mean 'yn'?" kenma asked. it didn't happen often, but he was very good at teasing kuroo, knowing exactly where to push to get a reaction from him. perhaps he was just easy to tease and push because In did it without knowing him.

"okay, hit below the belt," kuroo huffed, falling to his back on the bed. "i thought it would help to get the point through."

"it did."

using given name cut the distance between people, that's what he wanted to show when he was defending her.

"be honest," kuroo sighed, throwing his game controller away and letting kenma win the round. like every single one since they began playing.

"i wouldn't say it was weird, just surprising." kenma shrugged his shoulders, putting away his controller and taking his waterbottle in hand, as they wouldn't be doing much gaming anyway right now. "yuuto seemed gratefull, though."

that was very easy to notice. based on what they learned about yuuto, he was difficult to make uncomfortable, but it was clear at the time that he felt that way. nothing unusual, anyone would be uncomfortable hearing people say negative things about a sibling they looked up to.

kuroo wasn't sure if it was yuuto's expression on his face that prompted him to speak up, either to comfort him and ease the atmosphere around the table, or to express his growing sympathy for ln after only one afternoon together.

it was too little to say that he liked her or understood, but it was enough to know that she wasn't bad. she was still mean to people, but he couldn't look at her as if she was just being mean for no reason after seeing how caring she was to her siblings.

"you know, mrs. shizuku asked to speak with me today. it turns out she's the homeroom teacher. she asked me to help her with chemistry because she failed her retake test and said she is also concerned about her grades in other subjects."

"didn't you help her to study for retake?" kenma asked between sips of his water, and kuroo sat up straight, throwing his hands in front of him.

"that's the point! i did, that's why i was so confused when she asked me to help her, because i already did so, and it turned out to be useless." kuroo sighed and collapsed under the weight of failure.

"so why did she asked you again?"

"because she had no idea i helped her. from what i understand, ln told mrs. shizuku that she was studying with my classmate, the one i told you threw me under the bus with that tutoring thing, not me." 

"why?" kenma tried to process everything in mind. he didn't have a good memory for names and faces, so another character, a classmate, in the story kuroo told, confused him a little.

"that's a great question, because i don't know either. it's not like she couldn't say i helped her."

"maybe she didn't want to crush your reputation," kenma sighed, because he felt kuroo's positive attitude toward ln was getting into his head too.

"i don't have a reputation, please."

"you do, kind of. it wouldn't be good for your reputation as a perfect tutor if people learned that ln failed after studying with you."

"people already think she's dumb, it's not like they would put it on me."

"is she?" kenma asked out of pure curiosity.

"no, she's actually pretty bright, she gets things quickly after explaining."

kuroo believed it was more a matter of time and focus put into studying, since she was very quick to understand and didn't need him to repeat anything to get it in her head. if he had at least three younger siblings who wanted something from him every second, he wouldn't do well in school too.

"you're right, i don't think she would care much about your reputation," kenma said after a brief silence, causing a light scoff from kuroo. "but i don't see other reason to lie about who tutored her if she didn't cared somehow about it."

ln wasn't the type to care what others thought of her, and if she did, she was good at hiding it. she didn't care what others thought of someone she wasn't even close to.

kuroo was curious. he wanted to know if she had an ulterior motive for not speaking up about their tutoring session to their chemistry teacher, or if it was simply not important and he was overreacting.

on second thought, he wasn't sure if it was an overreaction. he would say it was a fairly normal reaction to ln, especially since he had no idea what was on her mind and it was directly related to him.

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i'm so surprised with how many people are reading this story, while i'm writing it (it's literally three people, but i'm used to people finding my stories after i finish them)

thank you sm for reading<3
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