Haikyuu One-Shots

Hurt (Kenma Kozume)

Wizzy: Just an idea I had. You could say this is Kenma X Female Kenma. Haha. Anyway, the game I'm referencing is Grub Guardian. (Also, I was going entirely by memory for that.) If you want to know about it, just come ask me.

As I was discussing some stuff about today's practice match with Karasuno's captain, something strange caught my eye. My best friend, Kenma, was socializing. And not only that, it was a girl who was with him.

He was playing some game on his phone and she was right next to him, pointing at things on the screen and occasionally tapping on it. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but it must have meant something to Kenma because it made him smile. Maybe she was helping him on a level or something?

"That's an interesting little development," I hummed, not looking away from the duo. "Who is that girl?"

She was a small girl; I probably would have confused her for a middle schooler if she hadn't been wearing Karasuno's high school uniform. With as cute as she was, it was a real shock that she might possibly know as much about games as Kenma.

"Her?" Karasuno's captain had a surprised look on his face. "I don't know her name, but she's a first year. I only know her because the teachers always have her run errands for them."

"She usually doesn't say anything, so no one really notices her," another voice added in. He was one of the setters, Sugawara, I thought his name was. "This is the first time I've ever seen her say more than a sentence."

(Reader's POV)

"For this map, the best starting formation is-" I tapped on the screen, placing the three guardians in the best locations. "Then you want to upgrade this one and this one." After pointing out the two, I pointed to the third one. "But don't bother with upgrading this one."

"Why not?" the boy beside me asked in a very calm voice.

With a smile, I started to explain. "Upgrading the Ice guardians doesn't really do anything. Overall, they're pretty useless. They have a very small attack range and they're not very strong. But their attacks will slow the enemies, which allows the stronger guardians like Myth, Fire, and Balance to hit them more."

As I explained it a bit more, a smile appeared on his face. "You know a lot about this game." His eyes shifted up and for the first time, I was able to get a good look at his face. "How far are you?"

"I've beaten all the free zones, so I'm working on clearing Celestia now." Reaching into my pocket, I took out my own cell phone and pulled up the game. Flipping through the zones, I found my furthest level so that I could show him. "This is the highest difficulty I'd seen on here."

"Insane? How many levels is that above the Hard difficulty?"

"Let's see..." Even with as much as I knew, it was hard to come up with an answer to that. "There's Easy, Medium, then Hard..." It never occurred to me that I could simply have just looked at the game itself, as I was currently holding it in my hand. "Then I think Very Hard and Extreme follow that. And I thought there was one more after that before Insane."

Being too absorbed in our talk of the game, neither of us noticed that we'd drawn the attention of several others in the room. It wasn't until one of them spoke that I realized anyone was paying any attention to us. "Looks like we've found a female Kenma."

Beside the light-haired guy who spoke was a guy with a very strange hairstyle. To be honest, I couldn't tell if he'd purposely made it look like that or if it was just bedhead. "You'd be a great couple."

"You're wrong." The guy with bedhead didn't look like he liked my reaction.

"Oh? What's wrong?" he questioned, leaning towards me. If he was trying to intimidate me or make me uncomfortable, it wasn't exactly working. "Is our Kenma not good enough for you?"

Sure, that may have been the most logical guess, but it wasn't like that at all. "You have it backward," I said softly, trying not to sound too sad. "Kenma seems wonderful, but..."

"But what?"

I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again. This wasn't something that could be explained simply. I couldn't possibly begin to explain how I'm a defective human. Friends... lovers... I always ended up hurting those I cared about. And with as nice as Kenma was, the thought that I might hurt him broke my heart. Better to stop it before it had a chance to start. "I'd only end up hurting him."

"What kind of excuse is that?" Bedhead seemed almost offended by my words. But who could blame him? Even I'll admit that it sounded like a lame excuse.

"It's just the truth." Bowing slightly, I decided I should make my exit. "I... I need to be going now."

(Kenma's POV)

"Wait-" I tried to stop her, but by the time I spoke, she was already gone. There was still more I wanted to talk to her about... She knew so much about this game, while I was only a beginner.

Of course, Kuroo would take my reaction the wrong way. "Do you like her, Kenma?"

"It's not that..." I hesitated as I tried to word it right. She seemed so nice, but I'd barely talked to her. I mean, you couldn't develop a crush on a girl that quickly, right? "I just... wanted to ask her... about a couple more levels..."

"I can get her number for you," Shoyo offered. He seemed sort of oblivious to what Kuroo had picked up on instantly, but that was better than him assuming what Kuroo had. "Then you can ask her about them any time!"

His sudden offer was very surprising. I'd really like to be able to talk to her again, and not just about games. I didn't dare say that out loud though. Of course, Kuroo probably already knew exactly what I was thinking. Regardless, I did want her number and nodded in response to Shoyo's words. "Thanks, Shoyo."