Thread by @ghostpot_, here’s the thing—kenma hates his voice. he knows he has a problem [...]

here’s the thing—kenma hates his voice. he knows he has a problem with mumbling, and part of that comes from how conscious he is of the sounds he makes.

in his own ears, his voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard, warped into a lower pitch with bleeding fingers. tires skidding on asphalt, muffled like you were caught beneath the street itself. grating. distorted.

the first few years of his youtube career were a nightmare because of this. the only thing worse than hearing himself talk aloud was hearing and audio playback of himself talk. this is what people heard from him? this is what people got without the filter from his skull?

he pushed through editing every single video for two years with tense shoulders and a grimace. hiring an editor was one of the best things kenma’s ever done.

so he’s not a huge talker. he still does it, obviously, his grasp on sign language is slim and there’s an unfortunate disparity of people who wouldn’t understand anyway. he can get away with the people he’s with speaking for him most times—

—and when he’s around just his friends he has enough fun to be able to forget what he sounds like for a few hours. these times are nice, when he can spend hours at a time bickering, joking, conversing, without much care.

when it comes down to it, he doesn’t talk to himself. he doesn’t sing in the shower. hell, when he’s alone he tries not to breathe too loud. he’ll do anything to not hear himself.

but here’s the thing—kuroo loves his voice. he adores it.

he’s talked about it before, at length, how he thinks kenma’s voice sounds like warm honey in tea and a blanket kept for too many years. he has a playlist of kenma's videos that he listens to on long business trips that he thinks kenma doesn't know about.

kenma’s no idiot, he knows part of the reason kuroo expresses cold video game takes is because he just wants to hear kenma talk about all the reasons he’s wrong. chief’s love for cortana was real, thank you very much.

and kenma… kenma loves kuroo, alright? he has big, stupid feelings for his big, stupid boyfriend that make it easy for him to run his mouth about why the little nightmares DLC should have done better.

all because kuroo looks at him with that soft, gooey look on his face and actively responds to kenma’s ramblings like he’s really, genuinely listening. (he is.)

then there are the nights—the weeks where kuroo doesn’t sleep. where kenma is roused from slumber every half hour by his boyfriend tossing in turning in their shared bed. where he’ll get out of bed at 4 in the morning to get water and find kuroo looming over his laptop—

—at the kitchen table. where his eyes glaze over in the middle of the day and his appetite grows small and he just forgets things, all the time. the weeks no doctors or sleeping pills have ever been able to fix.

kenma hates it. he hates that it happens, hates that they can’t figure it out, hates that kuroo hates it just as much. so he decides to do something about it, despite the embarrassment and anxiety that pools in his stomach.

this is for kuroo. he’s doing it for kuroo. kuroo, who he loves and loves him in return. kuroo, who would do the same for him in a heartbeat.

so at 3 in the morning, when kuroo very carefully attempts to detangle himself from kenma’s hold to escape to the kitchen, kenma reaches out and grabs his wrist firmly.

kuroo initially tries to pry it off, likely believing kenma to be sleeping, so kenma speaks out. ‘kuro,’ he rasps.

it’s enough to surprise kuroo, who takes a moment before brushing kenma’s hair behind his ear and saying, ‘shh, go back to sleep, kitten.’

kenma pulls at the wrist in his grasp. ‘no, you come here,’ he says, collecting his pliant boyfriend in his arms and tugging him to his chest. kuroo is bigger than him by a fair amount, but the position of kuroo’s head on his chest and body between his legs is not uncomfortable.

for a few seconds, kenma simply runs his hands through kuroo’s messy bedhead. he can feel how fast kuroo’s heartbeat is against the bottom of his ribcage. his own isn’t far behind, but nonetheless kenma picks through the catalogue of ballads he’s studied up on recently.

then he starts humming.

it’s bad. terrible. cacophonous, even. his throat is still rough from sleep, and lying down means that he doesn’t get the right amount of oxygen to hum some lines. he can’t reach the higher notes, so his voice skips out sometimes.

but kuroo is a grounding weight against him, and he isn’t panicking, so he continues. he hums slow song after slow song, songs they both know and songs they don’t, not stopping even when kuroo shifts against him and tightens his fists in kenma’s shirt.

he doesn’t know how long he continues like that, humming until it hurts and then a little more, but when he wakes up, kuroo is still resting on his chest. his breathing is slow and even, his heartbeat alike. the clock says 11:47AM on it. kuroo’s been asleep for almost 7 hours.

kenma did that. he smiles to himself, cards his fingers through kuroo’s hair one more time, then closes his eyes again.

he repeats the process again the next night, and the night after that, all the way until kuroo can fall asleep on his own again.

he quickly falls back into his usual self, grinning and provocative and hardworking. healthy. it makes kenma smile.

maybe he doesn’t hate his voice so much after all.

—FIN

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