Chapter Text
FLIGHT (I)
"You’re vulnerable, you're vulnerable
You are not a robot
You’re loveable, so loveable
But you're just trouble”
"I Am Not A Robot” by MARINA / lyrics
✧
They’re pushed together by their parents like the coast and the shore, meeting in a messy, itchy puddle, imprints on both their knees. Kenma cries until his mother bends down and picks him, bouncing him on her hip and wiping his cheeks. Kuroo stands curious, looking up at the other boy with unblinking eyes. The sun is dangling over the neighborhood and the streets are hot.
“Sorry, Tetsurou-kun,” Ms. Kozume says with a smile. “Kenma is a little shy. Can you be patient with him?”
Kuroo knows that word. He knows how it sounds when it's a reward and how it sounds on his teachers mouth. Kenma whimpers when they meet eyes and hides his face in his mother’s shoulder.
“I can.”
The adults stare down with parted lips. Kuroo continues looking up.
Kenma sniffles his snot back into his throat. He peers down at him with yellow eyes.
Kuroo gives his biggest smile. “And then we can be friends.”
Kenma starts elementary that fall and Kuroo shows him the ropes: the best place to sit during recess, the slide that gets too hot and static-y, which way the water faucets turn, the steep stairs next to the garden. Kenma follows along like a shadow, never seeking any more than what he is shown and hiding behind Kuroo’s slightly larger height when a teacher or student greets them.
After, they wind up by their parents. Kenma sticks to his father’s legs, hand twisting into his bland colored pants. Kenma ’s mother passes him a drink pouch which he takes and punctures with the straw. Kuroo’s mom hands him a water bottle. They chat over them. Kuroo tugs his mom’s hand and passes back the half empty bottle.
They walk home side by side. The Kozume family lives in a house with a herb garden in the front. A simple wooden swing hangs from the big tree sheltering their roof. Kuroo stares through the gate with curious eyes. Kenma slides between the iron barrier and waits by the door. Kuroo waves and Kenma looks down at his feet.
Kuroo’s mom holds his hand as they walk past a couple more houses. He unlatches the gate and the pigeons on the telephone wire coo.
“Tetsurou,” His mom unlocks the door. They pull off their shoes. Kuroo reaches up and taps on the hallway light. “Kenma-kun doesn’t have many friends.” She hangs her purse on the wall hook. “He might not know how to be friends with someone.”
She bends down to a squat and takes both of his hands in one of her own. “Can you wait a little longer for Kenma to open up?”
“He is.”
She pauses and pats down her son’s hair. “Hmmm?”
“Today we looked at each other. And he followed me.” His mother adjusts the hem of his shirt over his shoulders and neck with gentle fingers. “Momma?” She stands.
“Are you hungry? What do you want tonight; let’s make it together.”
“Udon!”
“Udon?! What meat should we put in it?!”
“Hmmmm, chicken!”
The first grade classroom has a lot of sun. The window seats look out over the street and where kids get picked up by their parents. Kenma sits in the last seat of that row. Kuroo visits him on snack break and the first graders stare at him.
Kuroo swaps Kenma’s grapes with his gram crackers. Kuroo has come to know Kenma despises vegetables and the only fruit he likes are melons and strawberries. Kuroo promises to buy him a watermelon and a basket of strawberries next year when it is summer again. Kenma nods and pushes own his napkin towards him from across the table.
“Why are you always with Kozume-san?”
Kuroo slaps the rubber ball back across the pavement. His second grade friend returns it.
“We're friends.”
Kuroo comes down on the ball with both his fists. It launches into the sky. His friends yelps and chases after it.
“Does he really talk to you?”
His friend squeezes the ball. He throws it down and Kuroo catches it.
“Sometimes, but not a lot.”
Kuroo holds the ball up and it blocks out the sun. He stops squinting.
Kuroo discovers volleyball when his mother is flipping through TV channels. He yells and they both jump. She leaves it on while she cooks them both lunch. The steady chopping hits the cutting board with rhythm. The boy sits on the carpet, probably too close to the screen, and completely raptured. The woman in the kitchen scrapes the food into a frying pan and drizzles oil over it. She lights the gas stove and presses her hip into the counter. The pound of a hand smacking down on something, the shrill call of a whistle, and the dull beat of cheers drown out the silence in the house. Fill the halls with noise and energy. She curses under her breath and stirs the potatoes, vegetables, and meat.
By the time they sit down, Kuroo has already asked for “one of those balls” three times.
Kuroo is told Kenma is a supernatural over a picnic playmate.
It goes something like this:
“Kenma, are you hungry?” Kenma’s mother crouches next to them and passes a small bagged drink to her son. The boy accepts it with a pointed pout and stabs his straw into the top. Kuroo continues watching him play with his DS one handed. He takes over one side with Kenma’s reluctance.
“Can I try?”
Kenma shakes his head swiftly, the surest reaction Kuroo has seen since meeting him, drink hanging from his mouth. “It’s not good for you.”
“Why? Is it soda?” Kuroo watches Kenma pet a little ginger cat on the screen. His mom doesn’t let him drink soda often.
“No, blood.” The cat flops over onto its back, and Kenma rubs its tummy.
Kuroo blinks and looks down at his sandwich. The limp slice of cheese is turning shiny from the sun. “Like a game?”
“No, I’m a vampire.”
Kuroo knows supernaturals exist. One of the girls in his class is part mermaid and she talks to their class pet fish named Bucky . His second grade teacher is a faerie and lets her students braid her long hair, and draw on their desks in whiteboard markers when they are extra good. “That’s cool! I wish I was a vampire.”
Kenma’s face sours. “You have to drink blood though. And blood is kinda stinky.”
“But you have super powers!”
Kenma looks up and stares off at the trees. He says, “No. We don’t anymore cause of evo- ebah- evo-“ He scrunches his face. He stands and Kuroo follows behind him. They walk up to their mothers who are sitting at a picnic table. Kenma tugs at his mother’s sleeve.
“What is it?” He climbs onto the table’s seat and tucks himself into her side. Kuroo does the same with his mom.
“What is that word that means the reason we aren’t super strong anymore?”
Kenma’s mother wraps an arm around his waist. “Evolution?” Kenma nods and goes back to playing on his DS. “Oh, were you guys talking about supernaturals?”
Kuroo pipes up, “Yeah! Ken-chan says blood smells ‘stinky.’”
Their moms laugh. “Well, blood is kinda stinky. But baby vampires have to drink it so they can grow big and strong. Ken-chan can move onto strictly red meats when he gets a little older.”
“Not a baby,” Kenma mumbles with a straw in his mouth.
“So you can’t fly? Or lift cars?” Kuroo asks mournfully.
Kenma’s mother says something and his mom laugh. “Sadly not. Do you know what ‘evolution’ means, Kuroo?” It sounds like a Pokémon. He shakes his head. “It means to change over time to survive. Lots of supernaturals had to evolve so they could be happy.”
“So vampires stopped flying to be happy? What if they liked flying? I would like to fly.”
“I’m sure there were vampires who loved flying, but…” She looks up then back down at him. “They had to do some things they didn’t want so they could be happy. Like how Kenma has to drink blood even if it’s stinky.”
“And you have to eat all your cauliflower.” Kuroo’s mom pinches his cheek. Cauliflower is icky, but his mom told him it made his body strong so he could play longer. And he trusts his mom.
“I think I get it.”
Kenma’s mother smiles. “Good. And!” She waggles her fingers, “There are things that supernaturals sometimes still have. Some of them are on the inside and are invisible, others are on the outside, like our family’s yellow eyes.
She pulls her black hair out of her face and opens her eyes wide. Kuroo leans over the table. Kenma’s mom’s eyes are yellow too. They are wider than his or his human classmates, and shaped a bit more like a square than an oval or circle. There was also a black, slit-like slash down the middle
“Kozume-san! You have eyes like a snake!” Kenma jumps in surprise.
She laughed and tickled his sides while pretend hissing.
Volleyballs are firmer than they look, is the first thing Kuroo thinks when he has one in his hands. He traces the grooves with a finger, following the sloping lines and how they run against one another. He holds the ball out at arm’s length and it falls off the tips of his fingers. “AH!” He falls after it.
His mother apologizes to their grumpy neighbor when his ball jumps over her fence and bumps into her flowers. Kuroo repeats the apology, but looks down at the brown smudge in the white. That night he holds the ball over his head. The moon glows off the white and the walls. Kuroo brings it down and sniffs it.
Kenma takes one look at the volleyball and tries to break down the hall. Kuroo slides in front of the bathroom door, narrowly missing slamming his shoulder into the frame. The younger boy glares up at him, Kuroo has learned he’s not trying to look sad.
“You won’t stop asking until I say yes, will you?” Kuroo’s lips stretch as he smiles half hopeful, half sure. Kenma tucks his hair behind both ears then sighs. He trudges moodily down the hall with a murmured, “Let me charge my DS.”
Kuroo bounces on his toes. He pumps his arms in the air and the ball hits the floor with soft pats.