Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The three of them stood outside the school gates, finished with their evening volleyball practice. Kenma sat on the half-wall, hunched over to block the sunlight from obscuring his phone screen as he flicked through a random game. He was waiting for Kuroo to walk home with him, Nekomata having caught Kuroo in a conversation just before he walked out of the door. Kenma didn’t mind. It gave him extra time to text Hinata about how he had found the new game in their mutually liked series. However, there was one thing that he disliked about waiting for Kuroo after practice and the thing manifested itself in the form of his- sigh. Friends.

“I bet I could jump to that cola can,” Kenma hears Yamamoto say to Fukunaga, a tinge of pride in his voice. Already Kenma could tell that this wasn’t going to end well, not when ‘bet’ and Yamamoto’s pride were ever involved.

Unfortunately for both, Fukunaga loved hearing those things put together.

Kenma discreetly glances up through his hair just as Fukunaga turns to Yamamoto, eyes shining. The excitement was practically vibrating off him as he stared brightly at Yamamoto as if daring him to do it. Kenma shifts slightly in his seat to see what Yamamoto is talking about, leaning forward past their backs to see a discarded Coca-Cola can on the pavement around 20 feet away from them. Kenma immediately groans but mentally berates himself for it when two pairs of shining eyes look at him.

“What?” Yamamoto roars, puffing out his chest to Kenma as he stands squarely in front of him, “You don’t think I can do it?”

Kenma rolls his eyes as he looks up at him, hair falling away from his face. “I didn’t say that…”

“But you were thinking it!” Yamamoto says, crossing his arms in front of him.

“No…”

“Well, I’m going to prove you wrong!” Yamamoto announces triumphantly, placing his hands on his hips as he nods to himself as if affirming the belief that he could somehow jump as far as that red, crumpled can and all he needed was one disbeliever to motivate him to do it.

Kenma sighs. He hated always being the disbeliever that Yamamoto goaded into motivating him.

Fukunaga rests his head on Yamamoto’s shoulder, peering over him to Kenma. Yamamoto freezes slightly at the touch. It’s almost interesting to Kenma, the way he didn’t even seem to be breathing, if not for the distracting fact that Fukunaga was smiling widely.

“Tigers can leap when pigs fly.” He teases, earning a surprised snort from Kenma.

Yamamoto starts at that, rocking Fukunaga off his shoulder and spinning to face him with a pointed index finger, exclaiming loudly, “I’ll show both of you!”

Fukunaga toes a line in the dust between them – a starting line, it dawned on Yamamoto and Kenma – before he drops into a seat next to Kenma on the wall, folding his hands in his lap. He looks up at Yamamoto expectantly with his wide eyes.

Kenma sighs. This was not going to end well. They’d gotten his pride too involved.

Yamamoto grunts at both sitting down and awaiting his spectacular jump. He turns to face his rival – the red can ahead – and judges the distance by eye more thoroughly now. He blinked. It was a long distance to jump, very long, and it almost made his self-confidence falter. But the coiling pride within his chest tightened around his heart and it fortified his resolve. He could make that jump. He was Yamamoto Taketora, for fuck’s sake!

With that, he takes a few steps behind him from the starting line, keeping his eyes locked on the red can ahead. All he had to do was gain enough momentum and jump. He could do that; he had the guts. Truly, how hard could it be to do something as simple as jumping?!

Yamamoto takes a deep breath, clenches his hands into fists, and yells as he runs, passing the wide-eyed Fukunaga and disappointed Kenma who turned their heads to watch him like spectators to a tennis match. Yamamoto jumped from the starting line, his feet making a loud ‘thud’ as he sprang from it. And to his credit, he does leap, spreading his legs far in the air as he soared. Fukunaga’s mouth opens slightly as Kenma’s eyebrows furrow in disbelief.

Yamamoto was going to do it. He was using his pride to dismantle the very laws of gravity.

Yamamoto felt weightless. Time seemed to slow down since he had jumped, his legs stretched as far as they would go in perpendicular directions to his body, his arms locked into his sides like a Super Mario character jumping in those games Kenma liked and beat his ass at every time. He turned his head slightly, catching the surprise on Fukunaga’s face as he flew nearer and nearer to the red can. He felt his ears twinge red as he grinned, slowly.

But then time sped back up and he was dropping to the ground. Yamamoto braced himself for his right foot to hit the ground first, leaning his weight forward. But he noticed his foot continuing to soar past the red can and instantly cheered for himself, yelling so excitedly that he hardly noticed where his foot was landing.

Fukunaga stood up as Yamamoto dropped to the ground and immediately slipped on a banana peel.

His foot slid on it, making him screech like some deranged beast as his body pelt backwards at the momentum with which his body came crashing down to the ground. He falls, hitting his head on the red can and his back on the pavement loudly, instantly groaning at the fall. Kenma stands up with his phone gripped tightly in his hands, unsure whether to check if Yamamoto is okay or if they should call someone. He looks to Fukunaga to see what they should do, and he stills in movements.

Fukunaga’s face was red and contorted in silent laughter. He was gripping his sides with his mouth wide open and his body shaking with his laughing fit. Kenma almost took a step back in shock if it wasn’t for the high-pitched peals of laughter that managed to escape Fukunaga and knock him back down onto the wall instead. The peals of laughter stole Yamamoto’s attention as he sat up with a groan and looked at the duo, rubbing the back of his head. He froze again when he saw Fukunaga howling with laughter, the sound of it filling the air. It struck Yamamoto as he watched in silent shock that he had never heard Fukunaga laugh like that before. He had never seen how Fukunaga’s entire face relaxed as he laughed, nor how pink his cheeks got or how he threw his head back to the sky as if he couldn’t help but let the hilarity before him move his entire body.

And the laughter, Yamamoto had never heard anything like it. It sounded like a mixture of shrieks and gasps and an endless stream of barking laughter as Fukunaga doubled over and dropped to his knees whilst shoving a hand to his mouth, desperately stopping his laughter from escaping him as he bowed his head, his body still wracking with silent giggles. Kenma met Yamamoto’s eyes over Fukunaga’s head, and it was easy for them to communicate in that moment the single thought passing through both:

What the fuck was that?

As Yamamoto stepped towards them, Fukunaga wiped at his eyes and stood back up, mostly composed once Yamamoto drew closer to them.

“Are you alright?” Kenma asked, noticing the way it seemed to take actual effort for Yamamoto to drag his eyes off Fukunaga to look at him.

Yamamoto nodded, rubbing the back of his head still, “Y-yeah. I’m… fine.”

Kenma arched an eyebrow at the redness creeping onto Yamamoto’s face as Fukunaga turned to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr Banana Peel, huh?” Fukunaga barely managed to squeak out before laughing again, body shuddering under it as he laughed into his shoulder, hand simultaneously squeezing Yamamoto’s.

It was infectious, then. Kenma snorted, instantly turning his head away from the glare Yamamoto sent him. That seemed to shake Yamamoto out of whatever spell Fukunaga’s laughter had on him because he was suddenly roaring.

“HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN IT WAS THERE!? I STILL WON! STOP LAUGHING AT ME!”

It just made Fukunaga laugh harder, dropping back down to his knees and dragging his hand down Yamamoto weakly as he goes, barely able to breathe. Kenma can’t help the brief laughter that escapes him as Yamamoto goes fully red and practically slams his face into his hands, yelling incoherently.

“Whoa, what the hell is going on here?” A curious yet amused voice calls out to them.

Kenma turns to see Kuroo strolling towards them, his satchel slung around his shoulder. Kuroo glances at Kenma’s glistening eyes, Fukunaga bent over with laughter on the floor, and a Yamamoto who refused to look at him, instead choosing to cross his arms over his chest and turn his head away.

Kuroo slings an arm over Kenma’s shoulder as he plops down next to him on the wall.

“So?” He asks, looking between the three of them.

It’s Fukunaga who glances up at Kuroo with tears in his eyes, still clutching his sides.

“Tora- Tora is going to quit volleyball,” he gasps out as he slows his laughter.

This makes Kuroo a bit more serious and he furrows his eyebrows at Fukunaga. Kenma bites his lip and turns his face into Kuroo’s chest, preparing himself. But Yamamoto turns to Fukunaga, confusion crossing his face.

“What?” They both say, glancing at each other before back at Fukunaga.

Fukunaga takes a breath and risks a look up at Yamamoto. A snort escapes him.

“He’s studying to be a clown.”

And then he’s stifling his laughter again into his own hands as Yamamoto reddens and kneels next to Fukunaga, balling his shirt within his fists as he jostles him, half out of anger and half because Fukunaga’s laughter made his intestines curl inside of him and it felt weird because he craved more of it.

Kuroo watches this display with a raised eyebrow, knowing he’s missing something but equally certain he’d be getting no answers out of the duo before him. He lets Kenma take his attention instead, feeling Kenma curl in closer under his arm, his body shaking with quiet laughter. Kuroo smiles at that and rests his head on Kenma’s, turning to watch Yamamoto shake Fukunaga before him.

God. Who knew when the three of them had gotten so close?

-----

That night, Yamamoto sat in bed, his legs pulled up and his pillow clutched tightly to his chest. Thoughts of Fukunaga had invaded his mind, preoccupying it more than he reasoned to himself that it should. He played it repeatedly: how Fukunaga’s face had looked, lifted in a laugh to the sky and pink amidst the oranges of the dying sun, his laugh erupting out of him something angelic. It drew goosebumps along his skin every time. Yamamoto didn’t know what to do with the explosion of warmth within his chest when he thought about it. Normally his pride resided wrapped around his heart, so maybe, he reasoned, he felt slighted by Fukunaga laughing at him? That would make sense, right?

Yamamoto toiled this over in his mind, face scrunched up to the ceiling as he considered it. When he thought about it, he didn’t feel a pang of hurt or arrows piercing his ego as if it was spite’s personal bullseye. No… when he thought about Fukunaga laughing so freely at him, he felt almost… glad of it. Like he would willingly throw himself on every banana peel in the world if it meant Fukunaga would watch him with those wide eyes and laugh.

Shit. Was he whipped?

He shook his head. No, no, there was no way. He couldn’t be. He didn’t like guys for a start and, and even if he did (which he DIDN’T), he didn’t even like Fukunaga like that, like… romantically.

The idea made his heart flutter, and he gripped his chest tightly. Panic began coursing through his veins. Was he having a heart attack? Shit, was he dying?!

He clung to his pillow desperately and shoved his face into it, pushing the thoughts away from him. He must’ve hit his head when he fell; his body was all messed up and dysfunctional. It didn’t help that he was feeling incredibly warm and light-headed, like he normally was when he saw a cute girl or was playing volleyball.

That made Yamamoto sit back up.

Yeah, that’s right! This weird swirly feeling was probably just leftovers from overexerting himself during their practice today! He had scored a buncha points and yelled until his vocal cords rattled. That must’ve winded him to the point he was still feeling it, hours later. Yamamoto nodded to himself, yeah that was totally the case. His body was just being stupid.

He threw his pillow back down onto his bed and finally lay down, hunching himself underneath his covers. He turned off the lamp on his bedside table and sighed before closing his eyes, resigning himself to sleep.

“He’s studying to be a clown.”

His eyes shot back open.

He felt too hot. He kicked the covers off him and lay flat on his back, staring up at his darkened ceiling.

“Mr Banana Peel, huh?”

God, how could Fukunaga make digs at his ego be so damn cute?

Wait, NO.

He shook his head of those thoughts like a drenched dog, reminding himself that he hated those digs, he hated the few words Fukunaga belittled him with, he hated it all.

“Nice slam dunk.”

Fukunaga’s voice drifted back into his mind, the words relaxing his clenched muscles slightly. Yeah, that was true: not everything Fukunaga said was a dig at him. Sometimes he praised him. Other times he muttered things under his breath almost as if he didn’t know he was doing it. What did he say at practice the other day?

“An attack in the air – a winged tiger… How scary!”

Right. Fukunaga was always weird like that, saying crazed things to himself and making himself smile. And yet, the words melted Yamamoto slightly, making his heart do weird flips in his chest until he gripped at it. Fukunaga didn’t say much, but when he did? Man.

“Tora is going to quit volleyball.”

He groaned loudly. What was he doing?! He should feel egotistically wounded at those words and be planning his vengeance – that’s what he would’ve done with anyone else – but here he was, gripping his chest stupidly again and hanging on to every word Fukunaga ever spoke to him. He needed to stop-

“Tora…”

And think about something else-

“Tora-”

NOW.

“Tora!”

Yamamoto groaned into his hands. This was going to be a long night.

Mixing with the barks of Fukunaga’s laughter, an idea popped into his head. He let his hands fall from his face and mulled it over.

Who’s to say he couldn’t be planning his revenge on Fukunaga…? That he couldn’t defend his own honour…?

There was just one problem.

How the hell would he do it?

Yamamoto fished for his phone somewhere in his bed before remembering it was on his bed-side table. He smacked his hand over to grab it, grinning as he picked it up. He flicked through his phone until he found the name he was looking for, mentally cheering that he was online (HA! As if he wouldn’t be, Yamamoto thinks).

He sticks the tip of his tongue out as he texts:

‘I need ur help!!!’

His message was read instantly. His grin grew impossibly wider, and he settled against his pillow, waiting for a response. As more and more time passed, the seconds feeling unmistakenly like years, the grin slowly slipped from Yamamoto’s face until he was scowling fiercely at his screen.

Eventually, he succumbed to his anger and tapped at his screen harshly:

‘KENMA TXT BACK DAMMIT’

An instant reply: ‘what’

Yamamoto huffed as his fingers tapped at his screen again.

‘I need 2 get revenge on fukunaga 4 laughin at me and I need ur brain to do it pls help’

He bit the side of his thumb as he watched Kenma type back quickly:

‘oh my god’

‘no’

Yamamoto groaned loudly.

‘Y NOT?????’

‘i don’t want to’

‘KENMA PLS I NEED UR HELP’

‘no’

‘PLS I WILL DO NYTHING’

‘leave me alone’

‘PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS’

Yamamoto kept spamming him until he saw Kenma send a text back.

‘GOD will you stop texting me if I help’

‘YES!!’

A minute passed. Yamamoto was about to spam him again, but then:

‘k’

Yamamoto raised his fist triumphantly as he watched Kenma’s status switch to ‘offline’. He threw his phone somewhere on his bed and burrowed his face into his pillow. He could feel his heart racing, jolting his chest. Excitement, he told himself.

This was going to be the best plan ever, and he’d get his revenge if it was the last thing he did.

Fukunaga Shohei, he thought as he began to doze off, you’d better watch out.

Chapter Text

The next morning finds Yamamoto pacing in front of the Nekoma locker room, his hands stuffed tightly in his pockets. He bounces around trying to keep the chill from settling into his bones, his ears red. He was waiting for Kenma to arrive, eager to pester him about the brilliant plan he knew they would create together (or, something tells him, that Kenma would create) to get his revenge on Fukunaga. He grinned to himself as he looked at the early morning sky.

There’s a tap on his shoulder.

He jumps at it and almost trips over himself, turning quickly to see what it is. There stood Fukunaga, eyes characteristically wide as he tilted his head at Yamamoto questioningly. Yamamoto immediately looks away, balling his hands into fists in his pockets, knowing that even staring at Fukunaga a second longer would make him want to spill his guts onto him and tell him everything about the plan he was concocting – which he absolutely, definitely shouldn’t since the plan concerned Fukunaga himself. Instead, Yamamoto began to whistle to himself as if everything was fine, as if it was completely normal for him to be here for practice this early and hanging around just whistling in greeting like some bird.

Fukunaga wasn’t buying it.

Yamamoto could feel him staring, could practically see the increasingly comical tilt of his head in the corner of his eye. But Yamamoto was determined to keep his lips zipped up, so he avoided his burning gaze and looked anywhere but him, continuing to whistle even though it was now mostly hot air forced through his lips.

There was something about Fukunaga staring so intently at him that made his heart race and every muscle within his body clench. He could feel his skin prickling under it, a heat coursing around his body. No, not his stare – Fukunaga was stepping closer to him! Yamamoto strains his eyes upwards, trying to focus on the dreary sky instead of the boy making him burn up like a goddamn inferno.

Because he was nervous about spilling his secret plan! That’s it! He wasn’t burning up for any other reason, okay!?

“Pinkie pie.”

The mutter breaks through his concentration and Yamamoto turns his head so quickly to Fukunaga that he feels a crack in his neck. He groans at it, immediately rubbing at the pain to ease it. He hears Fukunaga chuckle softly and it does something to his stomach. Yamamoto ignores it, locking it away with the plethora of other strange thoughts and feelings deep, deep down inside him, and looks up at Fukunaga.

“What the hell do you mean by ‘pinkie pie’?” Yamamoto asks incredulously loudly, drawing a tiny smile from Fukunaga.

Fukunaga jabs at one of his cheeks in reply, the skin dimpling under it. The warmth of his finger stills Yamamoto’s heart, and he can do nothing but stare wide-eyed back at Fukunaga as heat climbs up his neck, noticing the way his hair’s cow licks tremble slightly in the breeze. He feels the urge to reach out and flick one of them, lifting one of his hands slowly before he could think about it.

“Tomato,” Fukunaga says quietly, poking at his cheek.

Uh. What?

Yamamoto lifts his hand to his face with furrowed brows, fingers brushing against Fukunaga’s one determined to remain dimpling his cheek. He couldn’t feel anything wet or slimy on his face. And now that he was thinking about it, he hadn’t even eaten anything containing tomato that morning. What the hell was Fukunaga on about? There was nothing there but-

The realisation hit him like a ton of bricks. Yamamoto backed away from Fukunaga’s outstretched finger and immediately hid his face in his hands. He runs to the door but, having not exactly thought this decision through, slams his body into the brick wall next to it, letting out a sound somewhere between a yelp and a groan from the force of it sending his ass to the ground.

A few barks of surprised laughter behind him override his brain. He drops his hands from his face as he looks at Fukunaga, ignoring the slight pain arching through his body. But as soon as the laughter had begun, it ended just as quickly, and he met with the sight of a very amused Fukunaga, wide eyes shining brightly and a small arch to either side of his lips.

Something curls within his stomach.

Yamamoto clenches his hands into fists and glares at Fukunaga, ignoring how every cell in his body wants to ram itself into the wall to hear him laugh again.

“IT’S COLD, OF COURSE I’M GOING TO HAVE RED CHEEKS.” He shouts at him, folding his arms in a huff.

Fukunaga nods slowly. But if he believed what Yamamoto had said, he didn’t let it show and just held Yamamoto’s glare with an amused stare of his own. They blinked at each other in silence, with Yamamoto growing increasingly poutier, the bundle of feelings nestled inside of him unravelling steadily under the stare. Any minute now, Fukunaga was going to tilt his head questioningly again, and any minute now, Yamamoto was going to confess everything. He could feel it as surely as his ass felt the freeze of the cold floor beneath him.

As if the same thought ran through Fukunaga, he began to tilt his head and Yamamoto’s mouth dropped open.

“Ah, good morning my eager players!”

They turn their heads as Kuroo comes into view with outstretched arms, a bundled-up Kenma trailing slowly behind him. At the sight of them both, Yamamoto mentally thanked everything he knew, letting out a huge sigh of relief that made one of Fukunaga’s light brows twitch.

Kuroo claps Fukunaga on the back and raises an eyebrow curiously at Yamamoto on the floor, distracting them from their concerns. If Kuroo thinks the scene before him is weird, he doesn’t comment on it and instead goes to unlock the door, used to their unusual antics and more eager to escape the cold himself.

Kenma coughs.

Yamamoto looks at him and, as if something had electrocuted him, instantly jumps up and runs past Fukunaga (ignoring the way Fukunaga’s eyebrows both jump up to a raised position) to clutch at Kenma’s arms. Well, the arms hidden beneath the thick coat he had on.

Kenma recoils into his hood as Yamamoto shoves his face closer to his, their noses almost touching and Kenma’s hood practically covering them both.

“What the fu-?”

Yamamoto interrupts: “Have you finished the plan?”

Kenma pushes him back, huffing when Yamamoto barely budges. He shakes his head slightly by way of response and Yamamoto huffs in turn.

“Why not?” He complains.

Kenma frowns at Yamamoto’s hot breath hitting his face and tries to push him back again. Yamamoto again does not move.

Kenma sighs, “I just woke up…”

Yamamoto opens his mouth to say something else but lets out a yelp of surprise when someone grips the back of his jacket and pulls him away from Kenma. They both look up in shock at an amused but puzzled Kuroo.

“What are you doing?”

Yamamoto’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, unable to think of a coherent lie that Kuroo wouldn’t pick to pieces. When he says nothing, Kuroo flicks his eyes to Kenma instead. The two seem to communicate silently, their golden irises questioning each other in a way that sends a chill down Yamamoto’s back.

Kenma breaks first, mumbling as his eyes flick away, “Tora wanted to know if I’d help him with a science project.”

Icy fear strikes his heart. There’s no way Kuroo would let that slide – if it were something as simple as that, Yamamoto would’ve said that himself! He tried to catch Kenma’s eye, sending pleading telepathic messages as hard as possible. They had to say something else-

The hand slips from the back of Yamamoto’s jacket. It unbalances him slightly as he looks up bewildered to a lopsided-smiling Kuroo.

“Alright then,” he says easily, eyes flicking between them. “I’m glad you’re getting along. Now go get changed.”

Yamamoto turns his head speechlessly to Kenma who refuses to look at him. Instead, Kenma walks into the locker room, not sparing either of them another glance.

He didn’t know what the hell had just happened, but he was sure that Kenma had cast a spell on Kuroo to cover for him and he didn’t know if he should be eternally grateful or afraid.

Kuroo claps him firmly on the back. It jolts him out of his thoughts as he looks up, recoiling slightly as Kuroo stares hard down at him.

“Now.”

Yamamoto nodded fervently before all but jumping through the door. Kenma refused to look at him, but he could feel Fukunaga’s stare as surely as if it had never left him in the first place. He decides to take a leaf out of Kenma’s book and ignore them both. As other boys start to show up and change alongside them, the chatter filling the room, Yamamoto swallows his tongue.

The plan would have to wait for now.

-----

If there was one thing to be known about Yamamoto, it was this: he didn’t have a patient bone in his body.

He spent the entire practice eyeballing Kenma, nudging him whenever he could to try and get Kenma to talk to him privately. With every second he gained of Kenma’s begrudging attention though, he gained an equal number of yells from Kuroo to keep focused on practice with the warning that they could both do drills instead. From that moment onwards, Kenma met every hover of Yamamoto’s near him with a chilling glare that rooted Yamamoto to the spot and from inching closer to him.

So, practice wasn’t exactly the place for Yamamoto to determine what his revenge plan was going to be. That was okay! His spirit remained unfazed and as soon as they finished changing into their school uniform, he was all set.

He hovered in the locker room as Kenma slowly finished changing. His body almost vibrated with the willpower it took to not immediately go ask him what the plan was. He fiddled with random items in his locker, pretending to be busy to avoid questions about why he was still there if he had finished changing. This fiddling didn’t leave him free of questioning stares as the other boys quickly left the room, with one stare lingering on him so long that Yamamoto thought for sure he would burn up under it.

Fukunaga eventually walks past him, adjusting his bag on his shoulder, “See you later, alligator.”

Yamamoto pretended not to hear Fukunaga, rummaging through his locker loudly instead.

The door opens, letting a couple of the other boys out. They chatter amongst themselves, but Yamamoto was so attuned to Fukunaga’s speech by now that he could perfectly hear Fukunaga respond to himself with a quiet “In a while, crocodile.” by the door.

The door shuts, leaving the slow-changers and Yamamoto behind.

He felt sick.

Something was twisting in Yamamoto’s stomach as he pulled a string from his hoodie over his fingers repeatedly in a myriad of different intricate shapes. He didn’t like lying to Fukunaga, no matter if it was something as necessary to keep from him as his vengeance on the wide-eyed boy. It felt like the lies were eating at him. Yamamoto didn’t want to admit it to himself but maybe, just maybe, this whole revenge plan was something of a farce.

He shook his head. Yeah, he wouldn’t admit that to himself.

A slam of the door pulls Yamamoto back out of his thoughts. He looks around the room half-heartedly, expecting to see Kenma still tying his shoelaces ever so slowly (c’mon, seriously, was he a snail?).

The room is empty.

Yamamoto curses outwardly and slams his locker door shut. He bucks it out of the locker room, slamming the door shut behind him and beginning his hunt for Kenma. Luckily for him, Kenma walked as slowly as he changed, and he could easily spot the pudding-headed boy walking past the lower classrooms with his head down and phone shoved to his face.

“KENMA!”

Kenma jolts at the yell and stops in his tracks but Yamamoto is too busy running towards him at top speed to notice. As Kenma raises his head towards him, his eyes widen at the sight of Yamamoto gaining on him. They both realise a second too late what’s inevitably going to happen.

Yamamoto crashes into Kenma, knocking them both to the ground.

Kenma groans as Yamamoto, recovering first as if used to knocking people over, jumps up quickly and pulls Kenma up towards him. Whiplashed, Kenma continues to groan, hand clutching his phone tightly to his chest.

“What-? What is wrong with you?” Kenma says first, exasperation thick in his voice as he rubs his back.

Yamamoto shrugs, “My mom says I was dropped as a baby. I disagree.”

Kenma’s mouth turns downwards, muttering, “I can’t see why.”

If Yamamoto cared about his sarcastic response, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he notices the stray glances and whispers aimed towards them from the few other students milling about them. He huffs to himself and grabs Kenma’s arm, dragging him away in the hopes of finding a quiet space to talk. Kenma wiggles his arm in Yamamoto’s grip weakly but quickly gives up trying to pull his arm back and lets himself be dragged along, mumbling to himself snippets that Yamamoto barely caught in his determination to find a quiet spot. From the daggers piercing the side of Yamamoto’s face though, he could tell it was mostly digs at him. Graciously, in his hour of need, he allowed Kenma to get away with them for the time being.

He finds an empty stairwell and drops Kenma’s arm, immediately turning to face him with a grin.

“So?” He asks, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

Kenma stares blankly at him. “So…?”

Yamamoto stills his hands. “The plan?”

Another blank stare.

A look of disbelief crosses Yamamoto’s face and his hands drop open, palms upwards. “The revenge plan? The plan where I get revenge on Fukunaga? You’ve thought about it, right?”

Kenma blinks. “Ah. That plan.”

Yamamoto huffs and opens his mouth, ready to unleash a thousand curses on him, until Kenma rolls his eyes.

“Calm down, Hamlet. I need more information to create your ‘revenge plan’,” Kenma says, quoting with half-hearted fingers. “What have you thought of so far?”

Yamamoto frowns, “First off, you know my name is Taketora.”

Disbelief colours Kenma’s face. His mouth drops open to rebuttal this but, believing it useless, he sighs deeply instead.

“And I was thinking I could, like, challenge him to an arm wrestle in front of the team! That way I can beat him and laugh!” Yamamoto says excitedly with his hands on his hips until a thought passes into his mind that makes his shoulders hunch over in dismay and he stands in a sad power pose. “Actually, he beat me at the last match I challenged him to. And it really hurt…”

He palms his right shoulder in memory of it, glancing at Kenma as the boy lifts his eyes upwards. Yamamoto follows his gaze in confusion but, seeing nothing on the staircase above, looks back at Kenma.

Kenma sighs. “Why do you even want revenge? I thought you two were friends.”

Yamamoto shrugs, “He laughed at me.”

Kenma arches an eyebrow, golden irises boring into his as he searches his eyes for… something. Yamamoto shifts on his feet, unnerved by the intense stare and suddenly feeling like a mouse caught by a cat to play with. He rubs the back of his neck, looking away from Kenma.

“Look, I don’t know! His laugh made me feel weird, like I was having a heart attack or something. And I want to make him feel how I felt, I guess.”

There’s a pause. Yamamoto looks back up to see Kenma staring at him with utter exasperation and disbelief embedded deep into his features.

“That is insane. You are insane.”

Yamamoto scrunches his face and raises a clenched fist, fully intending to punch Kenma’s shoulder. But almost as if he had a sixth sense for their fights, Kuroo walks up the stairs next to them.

Seeing his two underclassmen half-fighting, he pauses in his climb and raises an eyebrow, glancing between them.

“I suppose this has something to do with your science project?”

Kuroo’s hard stare falls on Yamamoto first. In response, Yamamoto’s fist wobbles in the air until, realising it was still raised, he shoved it behind his back. He nods his head fervently at Kuroo.

Kuroo turns his head to Kenma for confirmation. Yamamoto turns to him too, eyes wide and pleading.

Kenma sighs deeply.

“Yeah…”

Yamamoto sends him a thank-you message with his eyes that he’s sure Kenma gets because he rolls his own eyes in response. Meanwhile, Kuroo climbs the last two steps and walks to Kenma, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into his side with a smirk.

“Attaboy! Look at you, making and keeping science project partners. I’m almost proud.”

Kenma’s face shrivels up, reminding Yamamoto of when a cat eats a lemon. “What are you, my dad?”

Kuroo pauses. Then something salacious crosses his face and he opens his mouth to say something Yamamoto guessed would be equally as gross, but Kenma narrows his eyes at Kuroo pointedly, stopping him.

“Don’t answer that.”

Kuroo nods, “Smart. That’s smart of you.”

Kenma glances back to Yamamoto who shuffles on his feet before them, scratching the back of his mohawk. He seems to take a moment of pity on him because then he says, unprompted:

“I’ll text you about what you have to do for the project.”

Yamamoto’s head shoots up just as Kuroo looks down at Kenma in surprise. Yamamoto nods eagerly.

“Yeah, yes, that would be great! Thanks!” He all but shouts excitedly at him.

Kenma nods in response and a smile plants itself firmly on Kuroo’s face. The bell rings and it dawns on all of them at the same time that they were running late for morning class.

Kuroo begins to steer Kenma up the other staircase, adamant about ensuring Kenma gets to his class at his snail's pace. He glances back at Yamamoto as they leave, adding over his shoulder:

“Oh, and the next time you leave the locker room unlocked, I’ll make you do fifty drills. Consecutively.”

Yamamoto swallows and nods. Satisfied, Kuroo grins at him and they disappear up the stairs.

 If there was one thing to be known about Kuroo, it was this: he was freaking scary when he wanted to be.

Chapter Text

‘when u said u wld txt me did u mean like now or l8r’

‘???’

In his first class of the day, Yamamoto chews on his bottom lip as he texts Kenma underneath his desk when he thinks his teacher isn’t looking. He keeps one hand fiddling with his pen on his desk, the other hidden safely in his lap. Impatience rises within him as he waits for Kenma to text back something, anything. It seemed like something was conspiring against him though because his phone doesn’t vibrate to indicate a text back. Yamamoto checked their messages again, just in case his phone was having an off day or something.

Kenma had left him on read.

Yamamoto chomps down on his lip to stop himself from yelling out in anger. He stews in his rage instead, shoving his phone into his pocket and looking up to glare at the board before him.

The teacher was drawling on about history or whatever, something about not repeating mistakes people made in the past. Yamamoto rolled his eyes. Yeah, like he would ever do that.

In his angrily-bored state, he drops his chin into his hand and taps his pen on the desk lightly. He lets his eyes roam around the classroom, noting how badly some people were at hiding their phones whilst how nerdy other people were for paying such undistracted attention to the lesson.

One such person sat a little in front of him to his left. Yamamoto could see the side of Fukunaga’s face as he bowed over his notebook, scribbling at a speed unknown to man in a small, neon green notebook that was offensive to the human eye. Yamamoto never saw Fukunaga without it in class and had glimpsed its disgusting apparel in his bag in the locker room, though he had never read what was in it. The last time he asked Fukunaga about it, the boy had quite literally opened his mouth to close it with purposeful force. With that audible indication of silence, Yamamoto hadn’t asked about it again. He just assumed it was either his horrific decoration of the school-issued notebooks or a diary he didn’t want to talk about. Either way, it had nothing to do with him.

Yamamoto leaned further into his hand as he watched Fukunaga. He was staring at the teacher now with his typical wide-eyed stare, reminding Yamamoto of a curious baby deer or something interested in learning and shit unlike him at the best of times. He was chewing the end of his pen now and Yamamoto briefly wondered if he should stop him before he got ink poisoning. Wait, could you even get ink poisoning from chewing pens?

He dismissed that, focusing on how smooth Fukunaga’s face seemed of worry. It relaxed him slightly. Yamamoto didn’t like that he hadn’t said goodbye to him earlier, hadn’t completed their usual greetings and all because he was – what? Feeling weird? Feeling vengeful? It was nonsensical, God, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop it. Pride was almost written into his DNA at this point; he couldn’t just deal with his feelings. That wasn’t the Yamamoto way.

Yamamoto huffs slightly into his hand. Fukunaga was tapping the pen against his lips now, thinking. Every bounce hit Yamamoto’s heart, and he watched him intently. Something about how Fukunaga’s mouth straightened into a triangular shape when he was concentrating intrigued him. Yamamoto let his eyes rove over his face, from his thick eyelashes to his comparatively non-existent eyebrows and how his hair flicked weirdly over his forehead in small parts. It was strange how weird Fukunaga looked and yet, for some reason, it all worked. There was something about him that was cute.

In an objectively, very straight, friend-complimenting-friend way! OF COURSE!

Yamamoto tightened his grip on his pen, tapping it more furiously on the table. People can appreciate how their friends look, that was fine, of course it was. Look: Kenma could be considered cute on a good day, hell, he’d even admit that Lev had objectively inherited the modelling genes of his family! So, this was fine, this was normal. Fukunaga was… cute. The way the light through the windows shone on him made his pale skin glow, so one could even call him pretty.

He bit his lip. That was okay, right? Yeah, he was just complimenting him! Fukunaga was really pretty in this light. He was pretty under the gym lights too, managing to radiate even when he was sweaty. He was prettiest under streetlights though, making Yamamoto almost glad of the coming winter that meant the streetlights turned on earlier. When they walked home after practice in the winter, Fukunaga often tinted pink from the chill, would sniffle and stare wide-eyed at the breaths that materialised before him in the cold air, but often he would stare up at the moon and stars still young in the night sky and Yamamoto would find him beautiful.

“Yamamoto, are you paying attention?”

The teacher’s curt voice jolts him out of his thoughts, and he acts on pure animalistic instinct. He stands up from his seat straight-backed, as if shocked by it, drawing attention from his classmates and surprise from his teacher. Fukunaga turns his head with the others to stare at Yamamoto, but he tilts his head slightly when he sees Yamamoto standing up and trembling slightly. Yamamoto feels like he’s being boiled alive under his stare and he can’t take it and he doesn’t remember what the teacher asked him but he knows he must reply and soon because they’re all looking-

He shouts in reply, “I’M NOT GAY.”

Immediately, he claps a hand over his mouth. The other students start to laugh among themselves at his outburst whilst his teacher blinks at him. He feels his cheeks blaze as his gaze flickers from his teacher to various classmates, and finally to Fukunaga. Fukunaga has a hand to his mouth, his eyes curved into a smile as his shoulders shake with silenced laughter. Yamamoto can feel the burn reach his ears, but when Fukunaga instantly turns to write something in his notebook, Yamamoto falls into his seat and hides his head in his arms.

“Okay then…” The teacher tries to get the class’s attention back on her and her lesson, but the surprise exclamation is the recurrent chatter passing through the class in whispers and snickers hidden behind hands.

Yamamoto keeps his face hidden, giving up on living completely. He was content to die of embarrassment, to never live a second of this ever again. He was the joke of the class – soon the school – and, God, Fukunaga laughed at him again. But it wasn’t how Yamamoto wanted it to happen: it was at his expense. It was starting to dawn on Yamamoto that he wasn’t making Fukunaga laugh on purpose, he was the butt of his jokes. And that felt awful. His intestines twisted in on themselves, the burn raging powerfully yet through his body.

It was all too much.

As soon as the bell rang to signal the end of class, Yamamoto grabbed his stuff and bolted out of the room before anybody else. He ran outside, revelling in the crispness of the air and how it cooled his skin. He collapsed behind a tree shielding himself from view should any other students come outside, hunching himself over his knees. It was hitting him that he had to acknowledge some things about himself:

1. He (possibly, maybe, potentially) liked Fukunaga (more than a friend).
2. His pride couldn’t stand to lose to him.

He sighed heavily, letting his head hang. A vibration in his pocket interrupted his self-pity though and he immediately fished his phone out to check it.

‘here’s what you’re going to do’

Yamamoto reads the plan in a block of text that Kenma sends next. It was simple yet effective. Yamamoto could get his own over Fukunaga by the end of the day and they’d be equals again.

He could make him laugh on his terms.

Yamamoto texts Kenma back:

‘gr8 lets do it after practice’

-----

Kenma scrunches his face up at the texts between him and Yamamoto at lunch.

“This isn’t going to go well.” He mumbles.

Kuroo swallows some rice and looks over his shoulder at Kenma’s phone.

He frowns, replying, “I thought that plan was pretty good. What, you doubting my knack for pranks already?”

Kenma rolls his eyes. “What knack is this? You have never pulled a successful prank.”

Dropping his chopsticks, Kuroo puts a hand to his chest as if offended and scoffs, “Have you forgotten about that time with the flowerpot?”

Kenma’s face eases into a deadpan expression. “You moved a flowerpot to a different position. Your neighbour didn’t even notice.”

“Okay, alright,” Kuroo huffs, pushing his bottom lip out slightly. He thinks for a second longer and his face brightens, “What about the time I convinced Lev that Yaku was in love with him for a week? That was pretty good!”

Kenma scoffs back, “That was me. I did that.”

Kuroo’s face falls, “Oh, yeah.”

Kenma shakes his head at him but leans into his side anyway, bumping his head against his shoulder. “You’re an idiot. I can’t believe everyone thinks you’re smart.”

Kuroo’s face brightens again as he looks down at Kenma. “Wait, people are saying that?”

Kenma ignores that in favour of reading the latest text in a stream of them from Yamamoto. He frowns. It was clear that Yamamoto liked Fukunaga and that he was suffering from a textbook case of dumb bi disease. Kenma should know: Kuroo invented it. It had taken Kuroo literal years to realise he was bisexual, which Kenma had gently coaxed his worries about despite suffering through every talk of who Kuroo found hot and why and what it meant. That suffering had only ended when Kuroo confessed that nobody was as beautiful to him as Kenma. And then the suffering continued for a year when Kuroo couldn’t connect the dots for the life of him that he liked Kenma.

Like Kenma said: he was an idiot. Now Yamamoto was infected and he had zero desirability to coax his worries too.

Kuroo watched as Kenma began to text back in a huff: ‘you like men stop texting me’

The phone was grabbed out of his hands before he could hit send. Kenma glared at Kuroo who simply backspaced on the text and turned his phone off, placing it on the table before them.

“That’s theft,” Kenma says, staring at his phone.

Kuroo shrugs, making Kenma’s head shift with the movement. “You’ll live. Besides, you’re the thief out of the two of us.”

Kenma furrows his brows, lifting his face to meet Kuroo gazing down at him, “How?”

Kuroo looks at him with adoration in his eyes and smiles. “You stole my heart.”

Kenma’s stomach flips. He pushes at Kuroo’s shoulder, mumbling, “You’re such an idiot.”

Kuroo laughs, lifting his arm around Kenma to pull him into his side. Kenma lets him do it, enjoying the warmth it brings to him.

They sit like that for a bit as Kuroo finishes his lunch and eats the rest of what Kenma left of his. Resting against Kuroo, Kenma thinks about Yamamoto and his own idiocy, named the ‘revenge plan’. There was nothing about revenge in it – he was obviously just freaking out about his crush on Fukunaga and doing what dumb does best: making it a macho man show. Kenma would’ve rolled his eyes at it and moved on if Yamamoto wasn’t blowing his phone up and keeping him from playing his games. He’d have put his phone on ‘do not disturb’ if Kuroo hadn’t convinced him last night to hear him out, to extend an olive branch. But olive branches suck and friends are tiring and he was so exhausted.

He sighed, reaching for his phone and opening his texts with Yamamoto again. A new stream of texts awaited him. He wanted to know which room would be best for the plan, immediately followed by concerns over whether he should bring snacks and water to put in there. Kenma wanted to text back ‘gay’, but feared Kuroo would be quicker in snatching his phone away than he’d be in typing and sending it.

“Is it bothering you?”

Kenma looks up to see Kuroo staring at him.

“What? The plan?”

Kuroo shakes his head, glancing away. “No. That you’re dealing with someone that’s… you know.”

Kenma knows. He can feel it in the way Kuroo’s arm slackens around him, how his jaw clenches. He means someone who’s in love with his friend and is doing everything but telling him that.

It’s eating at him again, Kenma thinks.

He raises his hand and intertwines his fingers with the hand resting over him. Kuroo looks back at him in slight surprise as Kenma pulls his arm tighter around him.

“No,” Kenma replies honestly, “It just requires effort to care about something so moronic for Tora. Like a lot of effort.”

Kuroo laughs a little at that. Kenma smiles, glad to hear it. He likes feeling the rumble in Kuroo’s chest and how it erupts out of him, jolting his entire body.

He rests his head back on Kuroo, turning to watch as Kuroo runs a thumb over his hand.

“I think the plan might work.”

Kuroo hums. “Yeah? You putting an official Kenma-stamp of approval on it?”

Kenma elbows his side, satisfied by the small, performative ‘oof’ that leaves him. But he nods.

“It’s stupid and will fail if they don’t talk to each other, but there’s a chance.”

A pause.

“It’s almost like I know a thing or two about pranks, huh?”

He can hear the grin in his voice. Kenma rolls his eyes, smiling despite himself, “You’re- “

“An idiot.” Kuroo finishes for him, moving to kiss the top of Kenma’s head softly. “Believe me, I know.”

Kenma would create a billion moronic plans and pranks if he thought they would stop Kuroo from thinking about their dual stupidity and suffering the past years. And if Kenma could kiss his doubts away once and for all, he would. But he knew only time would help to convince Kuroo that his brief idiocy in love didn’t bother Kenma anymore.

Well, Kenma mulls over as he reaches up to pull Kuroo’s face down towards him, it couldn’t hurt to try.

Chapter Text

Yamamoto paced down a hallway in the school, chewing on a loose nail. He clutched his phone tightly with his other hand, barely registering the dull ache forming there because of it. There wasn’t time to think about that, no. He was waiting. He had been schooled on what to do by Kenma all day, perfecting this moment and keeping out of Fukunaga’s way to ensure this plan went – well, according to plan. The trap was set. Now all he had to do was act as bait, dangle in front of Fukunaga, and pull back before the boy chomped down on him.

He hears footsteps pitter-patter down the hallway and immediately leans back against a wall, trying his best to act nonchalant. He only lifted his head when Fukunaga stood next to him, tapping the side of his shoe with his own.

Yamamoto looks up, feigning surprise. “Fukunaga! What a surprise.”

Fukunaga furrows his thin eyebrows. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, taps on its screen a couple of times, and turns it to face Yamamoto. He sees their latest texts pulled up on the screen.

Sweat beads at the back of his neck and he rubs sheepishly at it. “Ah, yeah… I guess I did… ask you to come… here…”

Fukunaga blinks at him. Yamamoto tries to keep himself from staring at his face for longer than two seconds at a time lest he gets distracted from the task at hand. But the way Fukunaga tilted his head curiously and blinked at him made his entire body flush with fever. God, what was he, a damn siren? Yamamoto clenched his hand around his phone again, asserting his control over himself, and swivelled his gaze to the door next to them.

“B-but I do need your help! It’s in there!” Yamamoto stammers out, flicking his head towards the door.

Fukunaga follows the movement, looking at it. The door was old and wooden with paint peeling off it, and it looked like it hadn’t been opened in months judging by the rust on the bolt across it. Fukunaga’s eyes flick back over to Yamamoto’s, wide and questioning. But Yamamoto wouldn’t be deterred – not yet.

“Please?” He asks, pressing his hands together in an almost pathetic pleading motion.

It seems to work though. Fukunaga nods at him and Yamamoto mentally cheers for himself. He slides the bolt over, both wincing at its sharp screech. The door opens, presenting a dark room filled with metal shelves, plenty of boxes, and a musty vibe. It was seemingly an abandoned storage room, one that time had forgotten about.

It was creepy.

Yamamoto takes a breath of fresh air, squares his shoulders and walks in first. He pats the wall for a light switch, shuddering in disgust when he touches something sticky. He hears Fukunaga follow closely behind him, feeling a burn from his stare on his back.

Yamamoto grumbles, hand repeatedly smacking against the cold wall in vain, “There’s no light- “

He hears a click, and a soft orange glow is cast about the room. Yamamoto turns around to see Fukunaga holding a string connected to the ceiling light above them. It fizzles, a quiet fire, but the glow it casts down on Fukunaga makes the warmth inside Yamamoto anything but. His heart was pounding now, everything within him screaming as he saw the glow light up Fukunaga’s eyes, brightening the brown with a halo.

Fukunaga blinks and tilts his head, breaking the spell on Yamamoto. “Mouse?”

Yamamoto blinks rapidly, looking away to pretend to search the floor.

“Y-yeah! I saw it run under the door and, like, it has to be somewhere around here.”

He pretends to look for it, bending over to scan a metal shelf closest to him. He hears Fukunaga shuffle farther into the room, searching. His hands tremble.

Yamamoto straightens his back and walks over to the door, slamming it shut. He hears someone grunt as they pull the bolt back over, its screech making him wince. Fukunaga looks at him as soon as the door shuts, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

Yamamoto hears footsteps leave from the door and places his hands on his hips, standing in a power stance before Fukunaga and grinning widely.

He shouts, filling the small room, “NOW YOU’RE STUCK IN HERE! GET REVENGED.”

He begins to laugh, throwing his head back, evidently pleased with himself. The laughter takes over his body, from a scheming boy to a maniacal villain. He snaps his head back down to watch the surprise and shock on Fukunaga’s face gleefully.

“Betcha didn’t expect that, didja!” He crows.

Fukunaga blinks at him with his mouth agape. Once, then twice. The silence doesn’t deter Yamamoto, in fact, it makes him grin wider, pleased to have pulled the plan off successfully.

“There was never a mouse! I tricked you so that you’d be locked in here! And now I have the last laugh! Hahaha!”

He laughs again, lion before a clueless kitten. God, he was a genius! This was the best, most successful revenge of all time! And poor Fukunaga – he didn’t know what just hit him! He never stood a chance; he must be so confused-

“But you’re stuck here, too.”

Yamamoto stops laughing, tilting his head in confusion at Fukunaga who was definitely not confused or concerned but a secret third thing.

“Whaddya mean?” Yamamoto asks, furrowing his brows.

Fukunaga points at the locked door behind him and gestures at the room around them. When Yamamoto frowns, he gestures between the two of them.

“If I am locked in… and you’re with me…” Fukunaga replies quietly, crossing his arms and tapping his index finger on his cheek as if feigning thoughtfulness.

Then Yamamoto gets it.

“KENMA!” He turns around and bangs his fists on the door, each pound resounding through the room. He roars at the top of his voice, “KENMA, YOU DICK, LET ME OUT!”

No reply, if there even was any, could be heard over his fists pounding the door, bouncing dust off it. But Yamamoto heard something squeak behind him. He stops hitting the door, his fists aching, and turns to face Fukunaga who stands with a hand covering his mouth, eyes smiling at him and shoulders shaking slightly.

Yamamoto burns at the sight of it.

He groans and walks further into the room, batting away cobwebs before bending over to reach for something behind one of the boxes strewn about on the floor. Fukunaga watches him closely as he stands back up with a water bottle, immediately opening it up and chugging its contents.

Once finished, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks at Fukunaga.

He huffs. “You want one?”

Fukunaga blinks. Then he nods.

Yamamoto leans back down and scrapes things from the floor. Fukunaga’s eyes open impossibly wider as he watches Yamamoto stand back up with an arm full of snacks and a bottle of water in his free hand. Yamamoto hands him the water bottle before finding a relatively mess-free spot on the floor. He sits cross-legged, leaning against the metal shelf behind him and drops the snacks into his awaiting lap. Fukunaga fiddles with the water bottle as he watches Yamamoto rip open a chocolate bar and chomp down on it.

Fukunaga tentatively steps closer to him. Yamamoto barely glances up at him in favour of shoving the rest of the bar into his mouth and ripping open a second one. There’s a joke in there, somewhere, but Fukunaga blinks it away and sits next to Yamamoto instead, legs pulled up to his chest.

Yamamoto continues chomping, though the way his hand clenches on the bar doesn’t escape Fukunaga’s notice.

Fukunaga rests the water bottle between them and sets the side of his head on his knees, staring at Yamamoto’s chocolate-filled face as best he could.

“Boss?”

Yamamoto swallows the chocolate and wipes his mouth. He doesn’t open another one, of which Fukunaga realises there are many in his lap and of his favourite brand; instead, Yamamoto sighs. The breath leaving his body seemed heavy, as if something was weighing on him.

“I wanted to get revenge on you by locking you in this room for a bit,” Yamamoto confesses in a rushed breath, refusing to look Fukunaga’s way.

The confession didn’t irk Fukunaga, not in the slightest, though he vaguely registered the fact he should be more concerned about Yamamoto seeking ‘revenge’ on him. He was distracted by the tips of Yamamoto’s ears tinging red and how cute he found it.

In the stretching silence, Yamamoto began to scratch at his neck, a frown deepening on his face. Fukunaga blinked, refocusing himself on what Yamamoto was trying to tell him.

“Huh?” came his thoughtful reply.

Yamamoto’s hand lifted to scratch at the side of his mohawk now, the red from his ears beginning to stain his cheeks. Fukunaga wanted to poke at it desperately, reminded again of tomatoes and feeling the urge to bite him. He let his fingers curl into the underside of his thighs instead, appreciating that now might not be the best time.

“Yeah… I guess I… well my pri- no, don’t say that…” The words seem to tumble out of his mouth, conflicted and antagonists to each other as he whispers that last part more to himself than Fukunaga.

Yamamoto sighed, lifting his eyes to the ceiling as he toiled over what he wanted to say. Fukunaga didn’t mind. He knew it took time to say the best possible thing. He was content to watch Yamamoto’s face as he thought. Fukunaga liked how Yamamoto’s eyebrows and nose scrunched up whenever he was thinking hard. And though he wasn’t quite sure what was going on, this storage room seemed like the birthplace of horror, and he liked whatever it had in store for them.

In store. He snorts to himself at that.

Yamamoto turns his head to glare at him, making the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge.

“What’s so funny?” Yamamoto growls out, nostrils flaring.

Fukunaga wants to reply something about dragons or his store joke but can’t figure out how to say it. Not when Yamamoto looked angry, particularly at him, and he wasn’t sure why.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything to placate Yamamoto and ease whatever anger this was about, but nothing came out. So, he closes his mouth and shrugs in response, pointing at Yamamoto instead.

Surprisingly, this douses Yamamoto slightly, his narrowed eyes relaxing. His eyebrows furrow though, a groove developing between them that Fukunaga focuses on.

Yamamoto asks him curiously, gruffness edging his voice, “You find me funny?”

That makes Fukunaga’s eyebrows furrow slightly in turn. What a strange question. Of course he found him funny; Yamamoto was the funniest person he had ever met. Fukunaga nods fervently in response, hoping that would get the message across, but the action seems to shake words out of his mouth before he can think about them:

“You’re entertaining. You make me laugh.”

Yamamoto stills, his eyes widening a fraction. Then he sighed, resting his head on the shelf behind him as he gazed at Fukunaga.

“But you laugh at me,” He mutters, holding Fukunaga’s gaze, “I don’t like it.”

Fukunaga frowns, looking away.

Does he laugh at him? He thinks back to how Yamamoto had made him laugh out loud for the first time just yesterday by slipping on a banana peel. It was classic comedy! He guessed he had been laughing at Yamamoto, but he didn’t intend it in a mean way. Yamamoto was being his usual entertaining self and Fukunaga had delighted in it like he always did, albeit this time vocally. But Yamamoto felt like he was laughing at him, in a way that he didn’t like…

It clicks for Fukunaga, though it saddens him.

His eyes flick back to Yamamoto, softly saying, “I won’t laugh if you don’t like how it sounds. I know it belongs in cuffs.”

He sees Yamamoto shake his head, panic crossing his face. “No, no, I like your laugh-!”

Then a pause.

“Wait, it belongs in cuffs?” He asks in confusion.

Fukunaga gives a half-hearted smile, replying, “It’s criminal.”

Yamamoto rolls his eyes at that, pushing at Fukunaga’s shoulder, “No! I like your laugh, it’s cute… in its own way. But that’s not the problem.”

Fukunaga feels his stomach flip at the mention that Yamamoto thinks his laugh is cute. But Yamamoto doesn’t notice as Fukunaga turns his face fully back to him, pink colouring his cheeks.

Yamamoto continues, shyness lacing his voice that Fukunaga didn’t expect from him, “I… I feel like I’m uncool or weak when you laugh at me. And that’s not your fault, it’s me being embarrassed when I do something that makes you laugh because I’m not doing something cool. And I want you to think I’m cool.”

Fukunaga blinks and lifts his head. Yamamoto reddens, looking away.

“Not that I care about what you think!” He huffs out.

Fukunaga smiles. He clutches at the underside of his thighs again and replies, “I always think you’re cool.”

Yamamoto’s head snaps back, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Really?”

Fukunaga nods, “Icy.”

Yamamoto laughs, a smile stretched on his face that Fukunaga packages away neatly to store in his mind. But something was bothering him.

He taps his fingers on his thighs as he adds, “I’m sorry.”

Yamamoto looks at him, “For what?”

Fukunaga gestures briefly at Yamamoto’s chest. Yamamoto looks down, confused, before realising what he was trying to apologise for.

He leans back against the shelf. “Me too. I’m sorry for getting us into this.”

Yamamoto gestures around them, a frown appearing on his face. Fukunaga watches his face closely, not liking the frown.

“You shouldn’t apologise. You didn’t know what you were doing. Me? I made a stupid plan - well, Kenma made a plan – to get revenge on you. Like some butthurt loser.” Yamamoto sighs at himself, crossing his arms over his chest. “You didn’t deserve that. I was being pathetic and emotional and- hey!”

Yamamoto grabs Fukunaga’s finger that had poked at his mouth, looking into Fukunaga’s wide eyes. He could still see the golden halo swirling within them from the light and it caught his breath for a second. Fukunaga’s finger is freezing to the touch, but it cools his inferno body temperature down.

Yamamoto holds his finger with a scowl, “Quit poking me! I’m trying to apologise- “

Fukunaga pokes the groove between Yamamoto’s eyebrows with his other index finger, amusement swirling in his eyes.

Yamamoto tries to maintain his scowl and grab Fukunaga’s other hand, but he escapes. They play cat and mouse for a moment as Yamamoto tries to hold both his hands still, huffing all the while Fukunaga flicks his free hand away from capture and jabs at another part of his body. Gradually, Yamamoto starts to chuckle and the corners of Fukunaga’s mouth flip into a smile.

Then Fukunaga reaches behind Yamamoto’s head to seek refuge for his still-free hand. He curls his fingers into his hair, freezing Yamamoto to the spot as his eyes widen. Fukunaga likes it when they do that.

“No more.”

“O-of…?” Yamamoto stammers back, eyes glancing down to his hand still clutching Fukunaga’s finger and back to Fukunaga’s eyes.

Fukunaga’s smile reaches his eyes. “Apologies. And revenge.”

Yamamoto nods in response, eyes flicking away in some embarrassment. Fukunaga doesn’t like that though and he toys with the back of Yamamoto’s hair, enjoying its coarseness and the way Yamamoto looks back at him with wide eyes. It sends a bloom of something warm across him. He hears Yamamoto’s breathing pick up and wonders briefly if the sugar from the chocolate bars has kicked his heart into a sugar rush.

Before he can open his mouth to joke exactly that, Yamamoto lets go of his finger and pulls the back of his head forward to crash their lips together.

For a moment, Fukunaga freezes. The kiss surprises him, with Yamamoto’s fingers curling into his hair and his mouth pressed firmly against his, their noses bumping awkwardly. Yamamoto is warm and fierce and strong in his movements, eyes twisted so tightly shut that Fukunaga can barely see them with his still-open eyes.

He doesn’t know what to do. Quite literally: he had never kissed anyone before nor even knew how to kiss. This was new territory for him, but Yamamoto was so passionate, it made his heart race. He wanted to speak this language as earnestly as Yamamoto did and not waste time thinking about the right thing to say or how to say it.

Fukunaga moved his fingers up higher into Yamamoto’s hair, calming down with the feel of it between his fingers as he tugged absentmindedly.

Yamamoto groaned against his mouth.

Oh.

With that, Fukunaga lost the ability to think. His eyes closed on their own accord, and he tilted his head slightly to avoid bumping into Yamamoto’s nose as he pressed forward, moving his lips more purposefully against Yamamoto’s. Yamamoto was so warm that Fukunaga felt he was melting in the kiss, with Yamamoto holding him closer as if he feared Fukunaga pulling back. But Fukunaga wasn’t about to let him go so easily either, not when he could taste the remnants of his favourite chocolate still staining his mouth.

They pressed into each other, Fukunaga almost joining the snacks still in Yamamoto’s lap. Fukunaga moved his newly freed hand to Yamamoto’s shirt, gripping it as he moved his lips more eagerly against Yamamoto’s. It was quickly becoming too much for Yamamoto though, the way small gasps spilled out of him. Blazing, he moved his other hand to Fukunaga’s waist and held him tightly. His thumb flicked upwards, grazing across the cold skin exposed there by Fukunaga’s rising shirt. When Fukunaga sighed at the touch, Yamamoto wanted desperately to devour him.

However, life was unfair, and they both needed air. Yamamoto pulled away first, breaking the kiss with a ‘pop’ that Fukunaga immediately echoed back verbally once he leaned his forehead on Yamamoto’s shoulder. Their heavy pants filled the air, creating a beat with the fizzling light above them.

Yamamoto twisted one of Fukunaga’s cow licks between his fingers as his breathing evened out, listening as Fukunaga’s followed. He was burning up, certain that his face was as red as it felt. He couldn’t believe the kiss: it was surely impossible. He hadn’t meant to initiate it, much less expected Fukunaga to kiss back! What did it mean? Was it a mistake? Oh God – did Fukunaga feel he had to kiss back because he didn’t want to upset him-?

“Saranghae...”

Yamamoto furrowed his brows as he pulled back slightly, forcing Fukunaga to lift his head back up. He could see the pink dusting Fukunaga’s cheeks slightly, his thin lips reddened.

“What?” He asked, his stomach twisting in fear as he searched Fukunaga’s face for any hint that he was harbouring resentment for him.

Fukunaga’s eyes shifted to the side, his hand still planted gently in Yamamoto’s hair. He shook his head slightly. If Yamamoto didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the guy was embarrassed.

Fukunaga puffed out his cheeks, avoiding Yamamoto’s gaze. “Mouse. Kiss. Stupid joke.”

Thank God Yamamoto didn’t know better. He was used to Fukunaga enough by now to get his obscure references, having forced both him and Kenma to explain plenty of internet memes to him. The realisation slapped him on the back of his head and a grin grew widely on his face.

He moves his hand from Fukunaga’s hair to cup his lightly blushing cheek, making Fukunaga look back at him. He can see Fukunaga’s brows jump slightly at the grin on his face but before he can ask about it, Yamamoto says:

“Aw, Mickey.”

There’s a brief pause where they stare at each other, unmoving, and Yamamoto begins to regret his entire existence for the billionth time that day. But then Fukunaga snorts, eyes closing and face scrunching up into a toothy smile that sends an arrow straight into his heart. Yamamoto wraps his arms around the other boy, pulling him tightly to his chest, not knowing how else to express his utter adoration of him. Fukunaga gets it though, the way he gets everything when it comes to Yamamoto and presses his face into the side of his neck, laughing lightly against it. Yamamoto is unable to contain his grin and exhales something like contentment.

A small, quiet rumble follows from deep in his chest: “I like you.”

Fukunaga hums against him, running his fingers up and down in his mohawk. It makes Yamamoto shiver. He would’ve started trembling if he hadn’t been already, waiting for Fukunaga’s reply.

However, Fukunaga doesn’t make him wait too long, replying with a simple kiss on his neck. And Yamamoto understands what he meant as surely as if Fukunaga had said it aloud: I like you, too.

They stay like that for a few moments, breathing each other in, until they finally break apart. Yamamoto can’t control the giddiness of his heart; it roars with pride in having the boy of his dreams like him back, having kissed him and held him and forgiven him. God, Yamamoto was so happy Fukunaga had forgiven him.

But it doesn’t change the fact that they were both still locked in that storage room. This seems to dawn on Fukunaga as well because he looks at the door, tilting his head curiously. Yamamoto wants to kiss him the way his eyes widen intently and his mouth adopts back its triangular shape.

“No lock.”

Yamamoto doesn’t understand, blinking stupidly at him. “Huh?”

Fukunaga’s mouth twitches slightly upwards into a smile as he looks back at Yamamoto, “Bolt. Enough force and…”

He mimics the door breaking open with his hands sliding past each other. Yamamoto’s brows raise and he makes a sound of understanding before they drop back down in puzzlement.

“But how can we break the bolt?”

They both look at the door. They look back at each other simultaneously, the same thought passing easily between them.

Oh yeah. They’re gonna ram the door down.

Yamamoto jumps up eagerly, extending a hand to Fukunaga and pulling him up effortlessly when the boy takes it. Once both are standing, they reluctantly let go of each other’s hand and begin searching the room in coordinated silence. There’s nothing in the room except old boxes and rusty shelves though, nothing that screams out battering ram. They turn to each other with this realisation sent practically telepathically between them.

But then Fukunaga looks at the door. He looks at Yamamoto. He toes a line between Yamamoto and the door in the dust coating the floor. Yamamoto watches his movements before looking up at him, the same playful determination in his eyes reflected at him.

Yamamoto grins. “Understood.”

He backs up as far as possible in the small room, tightening his arms perpendicularly to his body in opposite directions. He sees Fukunaga push things away from his runway before giving him a double thumbs-up, eyes wide and the corners of his lips twisted up. Yamamoto winks at him before taking a breath and yelling, beginning his run and picking up as much speed as he can. He angles his right shoulder to the door and ducks his head slightly away, not wanting it to take the brunt of the hit.

He smacks into the door, the force propelling him backwards.

Before he can slip and fall onto his ass, Fukunaga’s there to catch him, concern on his face as he balances Yamamoto back onto his feet. Meanwhile, Yamamoto groans at the pain, rubbing the shoulder surely going to sport a bruise the next day. He pushes it away though when Fukunaga rubs his other shoulder sympathetically.

They both look at the door. It hadn’t budged an inch.

Yamamoto’s mouth sets in a hard line. He wouldn’t be phased that easily,

He walks back down his runway and repositions himself. Fukunaga, understanding his intention, stands back to the side. This time, he raises a curled hand in a beckoning gesture, the perfect picture of a maneki-neko. Yamamoto took a breath and could’ve sobbed in happiness, but he held it back, instead yelling even louder as he ran, forcing all his weight into his shoulder as he slammed into the door.

There’s a groan. Whether it’s from the door or Yamamoto, he doesn’t know, but a horrific screech follows just as quickly and, for a second, he’s weightless. He falls and crashes onto the floor on top of the door, all the air knocked out of him and shocks of pain coursing from his shoulder into the rest of his body.

He groans, lifting his aching head as Fukunaga shoots out of the room, kneeling beside him. He helps Yamamoto sit up before placing both his hands on his cheeks, squishing his face gently as he checks him over for visible injuries.

Yamamoto thinks he must be dead because he’s suddenly seeing two Fukunagas bathed in bright light over him and if that isn’t heaven, he doesn’t know what is.

Seemingly content with his check-over, Fukunaga looks into Yamamoto’s eyes, his own wide and questioning.

Yamamoto smiles up at him, his cheeks pressing into Fukunaga’s hands.

“First try,” he says triumphantly.

Fukunaga shakes his head, smiling nonetheless, and leans forward to peck Yamamoto softly on the mouth. When he pulled back, Yamamoto beamed as radiantly as his hair in the light, making Fukunaga exhale through his nose sharply with two thoughts running through his brain: one, Yamamoto was so, incredibly cute, and two, a highlighter.

They hear footsteps round the corner of the hallway and glance up to see Kenma walking towards them, hands shoved in his hoodie pocket and face impressively bored. When he sees the two of them on top of a door on the floor and Fukunaga cradling Yamamoto’s face, he stops dead in his tracks. A look of initial surprise and confusion makes way for absolute disbelief across his face.

“You couldn’t have waited two minutes?”

Yamamoto furrows his brows as Kenma groans, slapping a hand to his face.

“The plan, the one we went over fifty times, where you specified for Fukunaga to be let out at 4.20 pm?”

Yamamoto makes a face of understanding. “Ohhhh. I forgot about that.”

Kenma lifts his face to glare lethally at him. “Kuroo is going to kill you.”

Yamamoto almost whimpers but Fukunaga standing up and extending his hand towards him steals his attention. He takes it and is pulled up easily (the action making his stomach flip). As soon as he’s steadied on his feet, body still tingling with pains and aches, he goes to pull his hand back. Fukunaga, however, keeps his hold tight on him, moving to intertwine their fingers together. Surprised, Yamamoto looked up at his face, immediately reddening at how Fukunaga looked so fondly at him.

On instinct, he looks away, suddenly shy under the wide-eyed stare focused on him as he rubs the back of his neck with his free hand.

“What, is your hand cold or somethin’?” He asks, embarrassment in his tone.

Fukunaga smiles and swings their hands between them in response. Yamamoto understands: no.

“Ew,” Kenma replies instead. Yamamoto looks over to glare at him but finds Kenma tapping quickly away at his phone.

Yamamoto lets Fukunaga help him walk closer to Kenma, limping slightly. Kenma doesn’t raise his head from his screen though, instead taking a picture of the two of them and continuing to text.

Yamamoto frowns, leaning some of his weight against Fukunaga and almost sighing at the feeling, “Who’re you texting?”

“Kuroo,” Kenma replies automatically. His eyes scan the latest text, and he glances up at Yamamoto passively, “He’s happy you’re doing… whatever you’re calling this and to text him if you want ‘bi bro time’.”

Kenma makes quotation marks in the air, rolling his eyes as he does so. Yamamoto cocks his head in confusion.

“But I’m straight?”

Both Fukunaga and Kenma look at Yamamoto, stunned. Kenma’s face twists in irritation whilst Fukunaga wobbles their enjoined hands between them as if saying ‘And this?’.

Yamamoto looks from Kenma’s face to his hand clutching Fukunaga’s.  

He pales and falls to his knees, slipping out of Fukunaga’s grip as he clutches desperately at his mohawk with two hands, crying out, “I forgot to think about that part!”

Fukunaga laughs in surprise, a short donkey-infused bark escaping him. Yamamoto looks up at him miserably, shoulders hunched over. Fukunaga extends his hand towards him again, smiling as Yamamoto takes it and lets himself be pulled back up.

“Laughing with you,” Fukunaga says quietly, re-intertwining their fingers.

Yamamoto gives him a wobbly grin as he squeezes his hand back, something other than pride wrapping its tendrils around his heart and enveloping it softly.

Kenma gives them both a disgusted look before turning on his heel and walking away, muttering under his breath, “This is going to kill me, I just know it.”

And it almost does: what with Kuroo having to stay behind that day to explain away the broken door of one of the school’s old storerooms to the principal, leaving Kenma sitting on the half-wall in front of the school gates and not completely alone. He hunches over his phone, turning the sound of his game up to the highest level to mask the sounds of Yamamoto flirting hopelessly with a silent yet equally amused and enamoured Fukunaga sitting next to him. The loud sound doesn’t work though, if anything it encourages Yamamoto to start shouting his profession of (ugh) love to Fukunaga.

Eventually, he quietens down and that’s what piques Kenma’s curiosity. He looks to his side through his hair and sees the ugliest notebook he’s ever seen be handed by Fukunaga to Yamamoto. He arches an eyebrow as Yamamoto, after seeking confirmation by way of an enthusiastic nod, flips through it and gasps dramatically every so often at its contents.

Whatever was in there made Yamamoto lean into Fukunaga and kiss the side of his head avidly. Kenma sent a questioning look to Fukunaga who just responded with a thumbs-up, his face scrunching up in happiness.

Kenma shrugged to himself and settled back into his game. Whatever makes them happy, he guessed. And, more importantly, keeps them from involving him in their weird, little debacles.

He felt an arm wrap around his shoulders and tensed up, knowing it wasn’t the one he was familiar with. Kenma looked up to see Yamamoto grinning down at him, his other arm wrapped tightly around Fukunaga who was leaning forward and staring at Kenma in amusement, seemingly knowing where this was going.

“So, when are we going on a double date?” Yamamoto says excitedly, jostling Kenma by the shoulders.

So much for hope.

Kenma hangs his head and groans.