people can be tolerable
sometimes
CHAPTER 5

kuroo tetsurou
hey is this f/n?
it's kuroo from chem
idk if you know this already
but i'm gonna be tutoring you
for this term. let's plan when we
can meet this week.

yang kin
oh hi
sure i guess

kuroo tetsurou
great
does friday lunchtime work?

Seen

———

Friday rolls around quicker than Kuroo expects. A lot quicker.

He finds that he barely has room to breathe now since Third Year started. Tutoring was just another tedious addition to his list of ever-growing responsibilities in the long tale of adventures that was The Life of The Awesome Kuroo Tetsurou, an autobiography he penned when he was 8.

That list includes, but is not limited to: making time for his new girlfriend, Ayame, practicing volleyball for the Spring Tournament, revising those stupid alkene formulas, wiping the smugness off Miya Atsumu's face at the next Tokyo Decathlon, and perfecting the best gelled hairstyle.

Kuroo looks back at his phone and at the brief text conversation between him and you. When his eyes rove over the word 'Seen', he deflates like a balloon, sinking into his seat. It would be ambitious to call this exchange a conversation. He felt like he was talking to a brick wall which wasn't made helpful when Kenma kept sending him that Kanye meme about it for the last two days.

And now here he was, lazily waiting in a spare classroom in his precious Friday lunchtime — they're serving Grilled Salted Mackerel Pike (his favourite) — waiting for someone that everyone tells him won't turn up. And they're not wrong. It's been ten minutes. He bobs his leg anxiously, Please turn up.

He wasn't saying that just so he could get paid, but because part of him wants to prove everyone wrong on your and his behalf. That you're not actually the person they make you out to be and more he waits in that classroom, specks of dust illuminated by the sunlight cast against the windows, the chair beside him as empty as his heart, the more time challenges his iron will. Kuroo has barely ever talked to you, but like everyone and everything in this society, he has judged you (even if he regrets it), and he has hid his impressions and thoughts well. It's not his place to say anything. You're on your path, running away from everyone else. Even if he wanted to catch up, to tap your on the shoulder and flex his "sexy (Ayame's words, not his)" smile, you'd be half a step — no six steps — ahead and not even looking back.

The world was trying to make it look like he'd have to wait for you to come to him.

Kuroo stands up, slinging his sweater over his shoulder. Fuck the world, I'll do it myself.

———

actually 6'2
hey kenma?

not a catboy
No.

actually 6'2
wtf i havent even asked anything?
smh tough love but it's ok
HEY HEAR ME OUT

not a catboy
They didn't turn up, did they

actually 6'2
...no

not a catboy
do you actually want to tutor them???

actually 6'2
yeah, i really do.
i wanna fucking help them.

not a catboy
Why

actually 6'2
i don't really know how to explain it
that's not me dodging ur question i swear

not a catboy
I know where L/n is
but you have to come to the gamestop with me
paladins dropped a new character pack

actually 6'2
fine why not
ok where tf r they then
i checked reg logs and they havent signed in

not a catboy
go to @kazmiyazaki on ig

actually 6'2
ok
what else
....
kenma??
WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO DO

not a catboy
idfk figure it out yourself
go check his story
good luck if ur gonna do
what i think ur gonna do

actually 6'2
and what is that

not a catboy
??? u know
gl or whatever
you're gonna need it

actually 6'2
ok

not a catboy
ok

Seen

———

The roller-skating derby is almost empty, which you found rather surprising on a Friday lunch, but then again, most people were back into the groove of September. The summer was over; college students hurried from place to place as you past them, eyeing the stacks of paper in their arms with a frown. You can't see yourself in the future anymore. Even if everything else around you changed — the weather from hot and burning to cold and chilly, the leaves on your garden tree dying in your hands and withering away, the people that came back from summer all new — you vowed to remain the same. It's better to keep your feet planted in the same place to stop yourself from changing for the worse, or to let someone rip you out all over again.

Life after high school is not of your concern right now, even if you had just started your final year. The biggest thing on your plate was the nausea that rolled over you just thinking about Kuroo Tetsurou.

Kaz trips over his untied laces, "FUCK!"

His screams make you press your lips and you watch his topple over, snickering afterwards, "Imagine wanting to go roller-skating only to be shit at it. Could not be me."

Chichi rolls her eyes, tutting, "Didn't you say you wanted to skip school today for this?" Her expression quickly likens to that of a Cheshire cat, teasing you with a singsong, "If I didn't know better. I'd say [F/n] is scared of their date."

"I'm scared of what?" You bite back an insult immediately. "Kuroo?! Oh, I don't care about him. I care about my reputation. Besides, don't you have an English pop quiz today?"

Chichi slides over effortlessly — she knows how to roller-skate rather easily, "Oh ho ho, I actually revised! Doth mother know thou wearest her drapes?" Her accent turns a little more Western and she reverts back to English smoothly. With a dramatic hand gesture, she points to your hoodie.

Kaz gets back onto his feet, "That's from Iron Man, you moron."

"No, that's from The Avengers!" A random man sighs from behind you, making you shiver.

"Okay," You huff, prying Kaz's hands off the railings on the edge of the derby, "We are gonna have fun. Besides, they're playing Paramore!"

Kaz narrows his eyes, "Someone needs a distraction... Didn't you air Kuroo when he texted you?"

You make more distance between you and him, scratching the back of your head idly, "Yeah but in my defense..."

Silence and then, "Okay, I don't have a defense. How is this my fault anyway?! He'll reschedule, I bet he will."

The worming sensation in your stomach whisks away your thoughts. It threatens to knock you out. You're shaken by this anxiety. Fear is persistent and nagging. This is one of those many moments when you have the urge to scream out loud in fury. And you won't hear your own screams but you'll feel bitter anger swell up the nerves in your arms and you're falling back into your head again — you're mean to yourself in and out, kicking it down the stairs of progress. You think you're going insane but that's what everyone always says and one thought spirals into another and another.

It's a shithole. No, wait — sinkhole, was it?

Whatever. It's both.

You're sinking back into the person you never want to be but are.

You're sulking for someone who won't come back because they were never there.

And now you're scared of someone you barely fucking know. Not because of them, but 'cuz you'll end up ruining yourself even more. You plan to push Kuroo away just like how you do the same for everyone else.

"I need a drink," You mutter under your breath but it's barely audible, starting to stumble. It was almost comical how in your plight you turn to the same thing that destroyed your family. Like parent, like child, your mind sings with glee. Your mom played with liquor after the police sirens came and the bloody evidence got flung into plastic bags. She was mostly silent, a mockingbird that had it's voice taken away, but then, in her fits of anger when something dark unearthened with her at the sight of you, her tongue and hands were let loose. Her screams are so loud that even now, it hurts.

That's it. No more — Pain make your way to me, to me — Hayley Williams' music is derailing you. You thought Paramore was the epitome of pop punk but now your head throbs from an incoming headache.

"And I'll always be just so inviting," You hum along to the music, searching for a place to stop but the floor feels like it goes on forever. "If I ever start to think straight, this heart will start a riot in me." A passing stranger's arm hits your shoulder and you fumble, realising that your very minimal (okay zero) experience in roller-skating is going to fuck you up in a minute... no, a second... no, now.

For fuck's sake, your voice is sharp as you think, if Chichi can do it, why can't I?

"If you're so inviting, then why did you skip out on today?"

You freeze, eyes widening; since you're midway through falling, that was pretty bad on your part. And you turn, Kuroo's grin being the first thing that gives you clarity, everything else is just a blur. Your heart is threatening to unwind itself out of your chest, because the guy that you were avoiding is now in your face with this shit-eating grin that makes you want to slap (or maybe kiss) him.

Stupid, stupid you.

"You?" You ask groggily, "Not you... please."

"Uh uh uh," Kuroo shakes his head with a laugh, "You look a lil' tired. Let's sit down."

It's now that you realise the only reason your face hasn't made contact with the floor is because you're clinging to Kuroo's shoulder like some incessant parasite. Recoiling, you pry your fingers off the cotton on his shirt, blinking while startled since why is he in his school uniform? The next suitable thing for you to leech the life out of is the nearby railing which you hobble over.

Kuroo follows, practically gliding over. He smirks as he leans over your shoulder, "What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"

"Ha ha," You mutter sarcastically, something sardonic coming next, "And here I was thinking you're the cat lover."

Paramore drowns out your thoughts, even if those feelings lingered beneath the bubble of your fake face, looming over ready to burst. Your lips wordlessly move along to the lyrics which center you in the midst of this chaos — I never wanted to say this. You never wanted to stay. People had started to flood in. It looked like it was lunch and a couple high school kids from Hyogo had taken storm. You watch one head over to Kazumi and clap his back with a laugh.

"Actually, I like dogs," Kuroo smiles.

"Okay," Is all you bother to muster. Anymore and you might throw up.

He breathes a sigh, looking around, "Ever been roller-skating before?"

Your response is curt but flat, "No."

"And it's your first time being tutored, too," He hums. Oddly enough, his expression isn't full of something viciously snarky or bitter as you imagined him to be, but he's carelessly relaxed. "Guess there's a first-time for everything."

You start shuffling, ignoring the squeaking of your blades against the wooden floor as you turn around, feeling the pit of your spine press against the railing, "Is that why you came here? To tell me that?"

Kuroo laughs. It's the only thing you can hear properly. A hyena-like cackle that would amuse most but you're unmoved, if anything, prickled by his presence. The music fades into the backdrop of your world, like your vision wants you to focus on him. "I thought I'd be mad when you didn't show up. I really fucking thought so. And then I found you here and it's actually pretty funny."

"Oh, it is?" You remark, "There are plenty of things that are funny. Chichi locking herself in that damn toilet on Monday. Ice Cream Sub calling me a Math god. And anything anyone other than me does. But this? Cringe."

"Cringe?" He taps his chin, "Funny coming from you but I'll take it."

You narrow your eyes, "If you wanna pick a fight, that's fine. Too many of you dipshits do anyway."

"So you can try beating a guy that 6'2 and does sports, to a pulp in a roller-skating derby on a Friday lunch? So that's why you skipped school today," He teases, unperturbed by your mannerism. You thought you were scaring him off but to your surprise, he's unrelenting.

Exasperated, you sigh, beginning to clock out from how boring the conversation was growing to be, "Kira, right?"

"Kuroo," He corrects, snorting, "I know you know my name, [L/n]."

"How so?" You ask innocently, red growing like vines on your cheeks at the sight of your short, gnarly-bitten fingernails.

He leans in, "You're a lot nicer when you're drunk. At least back then, I could get more than a few words out of you. And, you weren't mean."

"Drunk?" You hiss, eyes widening and then it hits you like a truck to the protagonist in an isekai —  Nerima Ward Nursing Home.

Dammit, you eye Kuroo, a singe of humiliation washing over you. You wear your heart on your sleeve when you're drunk; it's no secret. Parties were made a million more times interesting by your antics but you know well that most people got turned off when you rambled in the bedroom of a stranger's holiday home about why Call Me Maybe was the best pop song of all time. You thought that you could assume some sort of escape from reality by this, but all it ever did was have repercussions on your life and now, you can picture all sorts of terrible things this 6'2 rooster-head now knows about you.

"You don't remember?" Kuroo furrows his eyebrows, "Oh... You didn't do anything bad or wrong, if you're worried about that."

You breathe a sigh of relief, "Sorry about that... Just pretend it never happened."

Turning again, this time like the stiff arms on a clock, you shoot Kuroo a glare, lifting your head as you send him what you want to be a Scary Expression but given the circumstances, looks more like a puppy's pout. "We'll just go our separate paths now, I think. You can tell Ice Cream Sub you're still tutoring me and I'll cheat on the next midterms so it looks like my grades went up. I know you're getting paid so—"

"I can't."

"I can't...what?" You ask blankly. It goes over your head.

Kuroo looks at you and it's now that you realise his eyes are hazel. They always looked grey from a distance, but then again, you never paid attention to him much. He was a background character in the train-wreck of your life. Why did he need to intervene and change the course?

His expression doesn't change. His smile remains fragile and the corners of his eyes turn downwards like he's holding back something. Whatever it was, you can't pinpoint, which strangely irks you. "I can't pretend it never happened."

You bite your lip. He now has your full attention. Before, you were idly twittering away in your head about something delusional. "Why?" You find yourself asking. "Everyone else would."

"Because... I wanna give you a chance," Kuroo admits, "Just like how I want you to give me a chance."

"That's why you turned up here instead of staying at school," You fix your eyes on the floor, the muscles in your body atrophying from tensing up for so long. "Okay, hm. I'll have to mull this over. How about you cough up a couple thousand yen for ruining my day?"

Kuroo bursts into a fit of laughter, "How about we get a bite to eat, reschedule our session and I go back to school for volleyball practice?"

"Only if it's ice cream. I'm in the mood for caramel," You are so glad to take these stupid shoes off your feet and after hobbling out of the ring, pry them off you. A wave of relief rolls over you when no blisters appear near your ankles. And half-dizzy, you kick them to the side.

Kuroo follows, unbeknownst to you, smiling at your words, "Deal. I like caramel too."

"Hey, wait, someone stole my fucking shoes! They're brand new Reeboks. I'm gonna fuck this bitch up I swear—"

"They're right there, [L/n]," Kuroo points to the tallest shelf.

"Shit, yeah. Fuck, get those for me, will ya?"

"Only if you say pretty please," He teases light-heartedly.

Long story short, you're kicked out of the store for climbing up the side of the shelf to get your shoes. Oh and destruction of property because said shelf collapsed.

———

yang kin
hey guys holy shit
uhhh sorry for um
doing a BOLO

kazoo
it's called going AWOL
HELPPP

chickin
dont worry bout it
kaz and i just fucked around
with the miya twins
they dont even start school
until MONDAY unfuckingbelievable

yang kin
lmao
where r u guys

kazoo
shopping centre
gonna get a new phone charger

yang kin
ok have fun

chickin
HEY bitch come back
u didnt tell us where u went
where r u rn???
blink twice if ur in danger

yang kin
how am i gonna blink over text

kazoo
you'll find a way

yang kin
ok nvm then i wont tell u what
i'm up to rn

chickin
PLS PLS PLS
i saw a certain
boy
you know?

kazoo
WAI
KUROO???

yang kin
bye

chickin
just when it was getting juicy :/

Seen

———

Childhood doesn't last forever even if you want it to. But you suppose moments like this keep it together just for a bit longer. You'll never admit it but you don't want to grow up. Because growing up will kill You, or the person you are right now.

You turn to Kuroo suddenly. The two of you are on a random bus, knees almost touching as the heat crawls inside the small windows near the ceiling. You pretended this was the one you needed to return home because there is no way you'll let Kuroo know where you live. That's just freaking overkill.

"I can't make any guarantees that I'll like tutoring. Or do it," You add, quickly catching a glance at the bus stop announcement: Are we about to enter Yokohoma WHAT?

Kuroo shrugs, "I can't promise that it'll be fun. We'll just see how it goes. I'm not one of those perfectionists who give you a timetable and homework."

"Pfttt, like Ice Cream Sub," You scoff.

He quirks an eyebrow, "...Hibiki-sensei?"

"So that's her name? Damn," You look out of the window absent-mindedly; you'll forget it in a week's time.

Kuroo grins, "I think I prefer the name Ice Cream Sub. What about Ice Cream Top?"

"Oh, fuck off."

———

life Update wooo anyway so liek first off this book is Now my favourite fuck Lilo all my homies hate Lilo ANYWAY so yeah i got a job (that i hate 2 hell and back), i am in my final yr of college but my exams r in like 3 weeks Noooo and also i mispelt Mikey's name in that tokyo rev fic i have AHAHAHAHAHAA bro ive only seen like 8 episodes of the anime?? hmm i should discontinue that fic cuz i dont care about it.. OK BYE shoutout 2 Kaz nation Ari and Jake we love our kitchen utensils