Chapter Text
Two months later, Kenma is studying in the library peacefully when he hears a ruckus behind him.
Determined to ignore it, he hunches lower over his work, fastidiously highlighting his history notes according to his system: yellow for people, blue for dates, and pink for key terms.
The ruckus gets closer, though, and he braces himself for the arrival of one Kuroo Tetsurou.
“Kenma!” Kuroo declares.
Kenma rolls his eyes and sighs, annoyed at being disturbed from his exam preparations.
“Yes, Kuro?”
“Okay, so, in my Psychology class today, we were talking about Soulmates and there’s these things called Association Bonds? Have you heard of them before?”
Kenma considers the term and decides that no, he hasn’t. He shakes his head.
“Okay, so basically there’s three kinds of Soulmate bonds, and those types are called Associations. The main ones are Romantic and Platonic.
“Anyway, there’s a way to figure out which one yours is based on how you gained the color vision. Romantics tend to have a sudden burst of all the colors at once—which frankly sounds painful and awful and I for one am glad that didn’t happen to us—and Platonics will typically experience a slow but steady saturation of all the colors at once.”
Kenma makes a face of understanding, but then frowns. “Does ours count as Platonic then? I mean, it wasn’t all the colors at once, but it was certainly a more gradual process.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think it does,” Kuroo says, but he sounds excited and there’s a glint in his eye that accompanies his smirk, which means that he probably already has the answer to the question he’s about to ask.
Kenma fans out his hand in a gesture of well go on, tell me.
“Alright, so I skipped math class—don’t look at me like that, this was important—to hit up the library and my main man Google for other kinds of Association Bonds. And wouldn’t you know, there’s two other types of bonds! Well, one’s kind of a subset of the other types, but…” Kuroo cuts himself off in his own excitement. “Okay, so it’s called a Poly Bond, and basically you and the other person only see a limited range of colors—usually only the primaries red, yellow, blue—until you meet a third Soulmate to complete the bond and you get the rest of the colors!”
“That’s really interesting, Kuro,” Kenma remarks honestly. “So what’s the other one you found?”
“The other one’s called a Queerplatonic Bond, or a QP Bond for short. It’s characterized by a single color fading in at a time, just like we had!”
“Um,” Kenma says quietly. “What does queerplatonic mean, exactly?”
“It’s like, this… in-between of romantic and platonic,” Kuroo says. “I dunno, the explanation seemed simple enough when I was reading it, but it’s like… Friendship, but stronger. And a little different. I’m not sure how to describe it.”
“That sounds… good,” Kenma decides.
“Yeah? That’s good. I’m glad. Bokuto’s been texting me because I told him about the Associations and he’s freaking out. I’m glad you’re handling it better than he is.”
“When have Koutarou and I ever handled something similarly?” Kenma asks with a derisive snort.
“I dunno man, but I do not envy Akaashi right now,” Kuroo says, shaking his head.
Kenma sighs, realizing that his study session is probably over, and closes his notebook. “What kind of Association..?”
“Romantic.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. And now that Bokuto knows, he’s in full on panic mode because he doesn’t seem to understand that it’s romantic from Akaashi’s side, too? He keeps talking about rejection and stuff.”
“Has he talked to Akaashi about it?”
“Of course not,” Kuroo laughs. “That would be logical. We’re talking about Bokuto. That guy is one giant, walking emotion. It’s not always a bad thing, but right now it’s fogging him up a bit.”
“He’ll come around.”
“I know, I just hope he does it soon.”
“I’ll let Keiji know about the Associations, if you want,” Kenma offers.
Kuroo purses his lips. “Normally, I’d say go for it, but I feel like this is kinda personal? Maybe we should stay out of it.”
Kenma considers. “What if I tell him about our Association? If I mention that you’re the one who figured it out, Keiji will probably figure that you shared it with Koutarou. Keiji’s smart, and one look at Koutarou will tell him something is up anyway.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Still slightly meddlesome, but in a way that doesn’t force Bokuto into having to verbalize his feelings immediately. I like the way you think.”
Kenma smirks. “A very wise team captain has called me the Brain on more than one occasion.”
Kuroo laughs. “I love it when you sass me.”
“Good, because I don’t plan to stop any time soon.”
It was a fairly easy transition for Kenma from best friends to known Soulmates with Kuroo. He still withholds eye-contact from most people—it’s too intimate to do with strangers and people he doesn’t know very well—but the terror he felt for accidentally meeting someone’s eye is mostly gone.
He and Kuroo decided to keep their Bond private, or at least not flaunt it. Kenma’s parents are aware, and of course Bokuto and Akaashi know, but the pair decided that most everyone else didn’t really need to know.
Except for Shouyou.
Kenma announced his intention of telling Shouyou only hours after they had established the Bond.
“Are you sure? I mean, are we going to tell people about this?” Kuroo had asked.
“Did you not want to?” Kenma asks, suddenly worried. He had been so caught up in the colors, so excited and intrigued that he hadn’t considered hiding it. He wants to share his colors with everyone, wants to draw and paint and dye things every shade imaginable.
He doesn’t see how being Soulmates has to do with much of anything, at first.
“Well, it’s just kind of personal, yknow?” Kuroo says awkwardly. “And there are um… expectations…”
Kenma doesn’t catch it at first, but then realizes that Kuroo means the romantic implications that most Soulmates have.
“I’m not… interested in that,” Kenma says.
“I mean, I’m not really either? But people will talk, and I know you don’t like the spotlight on you. It’s uncommon enough to meet your Soulmate in high school that if we’re really open about it, it might get kinda gossipy.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not saying we pretend it’s not there, just maybe shouldn’t go around telling everyone.”
“Shouyou’s not everyone,” Kenma says, returning to the original question at hand. “Unless you’re worried that he’ll tell Karasuno and somehow, a high school in a totally different prefecture is going to spread rumors about us.”
“I… No. I guess not. Alright, go ahead and tell him then. Tell him I say ‘hey,’” Kuroo says.
“Is that one ‘hey’ or three?” Kenma deadpans.
“Just one is fine,” Kuroo says with a light shove to Kenma’s shoulder.
When Shouyou responds, it’s with three messages worth of emojis and confusing punctuation that Kenma correctly interprets as excitement and happiness for his friend.
Probably the best way that Kenma’s relationship with Kuroo has changed since their Bond formed is that Kenma no longer feels inhibited by his anxiety about eye-contact. Really, Kenma is a very physical person, and enjoys cuddling.
When he was younger, he would cuddle with his parents, and as he got older, the family’s cats.
He craved the closeness and warmth of people, but he couldn’t bear the thought of actually doing it, even with Kuroo.
With their newfound Soulmate status, though, Kenma finds himself curling up in Kuroo’s lap, leaning on his shoulder, or pulling an arm around his waist when they go to sleep.
Kuroo seems to enjoy it quite a bit, and soon they establish a sort of give and take that doesn’t require any verbal communication at all: they simply know when the other wants the closeness, the physical comfort of the other’s presence, and there they are.
Sometimes, they hold hands and hug, and Kuroo becomes fond of dropping light kisses in Kenma’s hair. Kenma prefers nuzzling into Kuroo’s chest, rubbing his nose there affectionately.
As their relationship grows, so does the richness of the colors that they see, and Kenma’s drawings become more and more attuned to the harmonies of the different hues he can make with his pencils, and even how those colors can translate to emotions and feelings.
Kenma can’t think of a better way to spend his life than surrounded by colors and Kuroo.