Thread by @IDtsuKei

I normally keep my angsty thoughts to my pre-sleep scenarios buttttt um today I humbly offer you some #kentsukki angst…..

Kenma and tsukki have been dating for a while now, but it’s not a public relationship. It’s not that the world didn’t know they were both gay, or both

Friends, but with both of them in the public eye(kenma more than tsukki but still), they wanted to keep as much of themselves private that they can. They aren’t one for pda in actual public, but they are super clingy when they’re around friends. Their friends know they haven’t

Gone public with their relationship and they all have learned to scan the background of their photos at hangouts for the two of them being a little more than friendly. Things are going fine until Kuroo’s birthday party one year, when he drunkenly posts a handful of snaps meant

For his private Instagram to his jva one. Most of the snaps show tsukki and kenma in the background in various stages of being decidedly not just friends. Holding hands while laughing at bokuto’s attempts at doing a keg stand. Tsukki crowding kenma against the wall, lips locked

Together, unaware of the attempts from kuroo at a group selfie. Kenma curled up in tsukki’s lap towards the end of the night, game in hand, blanket wrapped around them. When morning comes and he realizes what he did, kuroo deletes the snaps but the damage is done. Kenma and

Tsukki wave off his apologies, it was bound to come out eventually, and they both release a statement that yes, they are dating, have been for some time now, and are happy with each other and thankful for the support from their communities. Now, most of Kenma’s followers are

Happy for them, they spam twitter with clips of kenma discussing tsukki with a genuine and rare smile on their face. Tsukki has already dealt with most of the backlash of being an lgbtq+ pro athlete, and with it being off season, he gets to avoid post game interviews where he’s

Sure someone would ask something stupid. There is, however, a small but incredibly vocal group who are pissed. They think kenma should be with someone smaller, cuter, not as mean or nonchalant, aka they want kenma to be with hinata and they are not afraid to scream it from the

Top of their lungs.(side note I love ken//hina pls don’t come for me I love anyone who ships them!!!)

Almost daily there’s a new hashtag trending, and a lot of them are incredibly harsh towards tsukki. They pick him apart, calling him mean and a bully(using clips from interviews

With kageyama or hinata, said in good fun but taken completely out of context.) they say that he isn’t even a real volleyball player, couldn’t even make it to div. 1.

Kenma is upset every time they see a new hashtag, but tsukki reassures them that he doesn’t care. He’s never

Been the worlds most popular person, there’s nothing the anon faces on the internet are saying that he hasn’t heard to his face for simply existing. Tsukki tells kenma to just ignore it, let people be bitter on the side and they’ll eventually find something new to bitch about

If they don’t feed the flames. Kenma agrees to not publicly address it, only shutting down talks of it in their stream.

Tsukkis friends start to get mad, thinking that kenma is willfully allowing their fans to rake tsukki across the coals, even though tsukki tells them it’s his

Choice, not Kenma’s. His reassurances don’t stop akiteru from pulling the overprotective big brother act though, and he calls kenma asking if there’s really nothing they can do. That tsukki seems prickly on the exterior but that he shouldn’t have to internalize all of this hate

And negativity that’s thrown at him, that kenma should see that it’s affecting tsukki even if he tries to play it off. Kenma starts to spiral, are they a bad partner? Are they allowing people to be awful towards tsukki just to avoid confrontation? Would tsukki be happier without

Them?

It comes to a head that same afternoon, for kenma. Tsukki gets back to their shared home, soaking wet, and grumpy. While waiting for his drinks with yamaguchi at the cafe they frequent, one of Kenma’s younger fans threw their drink at tsukki, shouting that tsukki was a

Home wrecker who was in hinata’s way. Kenma breaks and as tsukki is in the shower washing off the stickiness of the drink, they make up their mind. Tsukki walks into the living room, changed into sweats and an old t-shirt, towel drying his hair. He’s beautiful, and kenma can

Smell his strawberry shampoo from across the room and almost goes back on their decision. They don’t though, and ignore the pounding of their heart, the naseau in their stomach as they tell tsukki that they think he should move his stuff into the guest bedroom. Tsukki freezes,

Head whipping to look at kenma in alarm.

‘And why would I do that?’

‘I just don’t think it’s working out.’ They will their voice to stay steady, grateful for the game in their hand even if they are just aimlessly running in circles. Anything to keep from making eye contact

With tsukki and backing down.

‘I…what?’ Kenma can hear the confusion in tsukki’s voice slowly changing to a mix of disbelief and grief. ‘Is this because of the drink because I told you I-‘

‘No. I just don’t think there’s anything there anymore,’ they shrug. ‘Better to end

It now before we end up hating each other.’

‘Kenma you can’t be serious.’ They can tell from the break in tsukki’s voice that he’s either already crying or seconds away from it. They keep repeating ‘better for him in the long run’ in their mind.

‘I am.’

‘Put the game down

And tell me to my face you don’t love me anymore.’

Kenma pauses, taking a deep breath before looking up to see tsukki’s tear stained face before replying ‘I don’t,’ hands clutching their game tight enough that they’re surprised they haven’t cracked the screen.

‘Liar,’ tsukki

Gasps out. ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this?’

‘Like I said, I just don’t want to be with you anymore.’

‘We live together, could you not have decided to have your crisis before I broke my lease?’ Tsukki is full blown crying now, one hand clutched in his shirt by his

Chest, the other wiping the constant stream of tears away. Kenma wants this conversation to be over, so they can try to stop the image of tsukki’s heartbreak from searing itself into the back of their eyelids.

‘I told you, you can use the guest bedroom until you find a new

Place.’

‘Yeah cause finding a new place in Tokyo is so easy,’ he laughs borderline hysterically. ‘If I find a new place, we’re done kenma. There’s no coming back from it.’

Kenma doesn’t reply.

‘Un-fucking-believable.’ Tsukki stands up, grabbing his phone and his keys and

Slamming the front door behind him. Kenma catches themselves before they press send on a text to tsukki that he was going to catch a cold without shoes, and to drive safe. That’s not their worry anymore. They sit on the couch, unmoving, as their character in the abandoned game

Dies over and over again. They briefly wonder when the numbness will go away, before silently walking upstairs and collapsing in bed.

Meanwhile, tsukki shows up at yamaguchis house, still sobbing hysterically. Yamaguchi barely makes out the words ‘Kenma dumped me’ in between

Gasps for air. He pulls tsukki inside, bundles him in blankets on the couch at sits with him as he cries himself to sleep. Once tsukki is out, he sends off a text to kenma that says ‘wtf???’ That does not get a reply. A few hours later, tsukki wakes up to the sound of yachi in

The kitchen, clanging around pots and talking lowly with yamaguchi. He realizes that Yamaguchi must have called in backup, but is too exhausted to alert them he’s awake. He feels like he’s having an out of body experience. Eventually, his friends come into the living room where

He’s laying on the couch still, staring blankly at the wall. They ask if he wants to talk about it and he shakes his head no, so they sit with him in silence as the soup yachi made goes cold. Yachi’s wiggled her way on the couch with him, pulling his head into her lap and

Stroking his hair as he goes from a blank zoned out stare, back to sniffles as he tries to not think about what just happened. Yamaguchi is in the arm chair, telling a generic story about work to them when his doorbell rings again. He frowns, and goes to get the door to see

Hinata, also looking upset. He storms into the house, talking a mile a minute. Hinata is terminally /offline/, and had no clue this whole thing was going on between Kenma’s fans and tsukki until today, when his attempts at wooing oikawa and iwaizumi were completely smashed when

The two of them mentioned that they thought he was involved with kenma. They told him that they liked him, but that they weren’t trying to invite a load of drama into their relationship right now. So hinata had to go to natsu to show him what they were on about and did they know

What people were saying online??

‘You don’t have to worry about it for much longer,’ tsukki croaks from the couch. Hinata jumps, not knowing he was there. ‘They broke up with me so the hashtags should die out. I’d say sorry for ruining your shot with the grand king but it looks

Like karma already got me,’ he breaks off his sentence, burying his face into yachi’s legs as he begins crying again. Cut to the four of them plus kageyama on a FaceTime spending the evening comforting tsukki and hinata.

Kenma cancels a few streams, claiming illness before

Kuroo catches on. He barges in the house to find kenma laying in bed at four pm. Says he text tsukki to see why kenma had been canceling streams, and if the two of them needed a caretaker only for tsukki to reply ‘I don’t know, they dumped me three days ago. Find out for

Yourself.’ They have a heartfelt talk about what happened and kuroo tells kenma that he doesn’t support their decision, that he thinks they’re making a mistake, but that he does support them as his best friend and will be there for them. Tells them that they made their choice and

Unless they plan on going to yamaguchis to grovel for tsukki’s forgiveness(kuroo votes for this plan are ignored), they need to get up and move on with their life. A few days later, kuroo comes back over to pack up tsukki’s stuff. It was supposed to be kuroo and bokuto, but kuroo

Informs kenma that his beautiful empathetic boyfriend was currently in the car, crying over the injustice of it all.

‘I think Bo’s taking the breakup just as hard as the two of you. Tsukkis like his son or something, he needs a moment.’

Kenma’s reply to this is to walk out of

Their backdoor and sit in the garden, concentrating on controlling their breathing so they don’t cry until Kuroo knocks on the doorframe to tell them they have it all. He frowns, pulling kenma into a hug and reminding them that despite what they think, it’s not too late to fix

Things. It is, according to their brain at least. They go back to streaming and eventually their fans catch on about the breakup. Kenma says they’re not making an official statement, but that it was absolutely not tsukki’s fault, and that they will not tolerate anyone bashing him

In their chat, or in their replies, or anywhere where they can see it. Another week or so passes and they’re scrolling through Instagram when they see a post from hinata, tagging tsukki in the picture with the caption ‘move in day! Sun and moon reunite ☀️ 🌙(don’t tell him I

Said this, he’ll stop sharing his food)’ they would laugh at hinata’s antics, glad tsukki found a good place to stay, but their eyes are caught on the glimpse of tsukki in the photo. It’s not much, a corner of his back and the bottom of the back of his head. His hair was getting

Long enough, he was due for a haircut soon, kenma thought. Then they realized this was the first time they had seen tsukki since he left that night, and that it was no longer their place to know the schedule of tsukki’s hair cuts, and their heart clenches so painfully they have

To shut their phone off. They cancel stream that night and say nothing when kuro shows up with take out and let’s kenma cry on his shoulder.

It’s four am and I need to sleep so bedtime now, if I wake up and think of the comfort part of this between playing Pokémon I’ll update. If not just know that it’s painful now but not forever!

Kenma tries to barrel through the next week but each day is worse than the one before it. They’re counting down the minutes until they can be done with their stream, regretting signing up for some multi streamer tournament. They’re placed with three random streamers, and while

Two of them are super nice, the third dude has already misgendered kenma twice, and after being politely corrected both times, has started aggressively flirting with kenma. They’re getting annoyed, their chat is getting annoyed, but the organizers of the event won’t reply to any

Of the messages asking for them to step in and say something. They grit their teeth and push through the last two matches, and go to a quick brb screen before the planned hour cool down playing a solo game. Their head is throbbing and they look at their phone while waiting for

Their snack to warm up, and do their now three times a day routine of stalking tsukki’s insta(no new updates) and then hinatas(heart clenching painfully whenever they get a glimpse of tsukki in the background). Hinata just posted thirty minutes ago, a candid of tsukki and yachi

Curled up, dead asleep on the couch. He’s captioned it ‘the blonde gays huddle together for warmth in the winter, hibernating until summer.’ They have to refrain from liking the post, and their mood plummets even further. They finally go back to finish stream when someone in chat

Asks them why they don’t play with friends anymore, esp since they’ve seemed to be in a bad mood for the last month. Kenma loses their cool, snapping that it’s hard to play with friends when people tend to forget that they’re real people. That it’s hard to play with friends when

Said friends get harassed for just knowing kenma. They tell chat that their community doesn’t exist in a bubble, and real life people are affected when they trend mean or negative or untrue shit about them. They sign off early.

Another week of canceled streams and being miserable passes. Kuro has started coming over every other day to make sure kenma is eating and socializing. They’re eating dinner when kuroo starts explaining some friend group drama, tsukki(he’s stopped avoiding mentioning him in

Conversations to Kenma’s delight and dismay) came over to get something from kuroo when iwaizumi was helping bokuto meal plan, and it turned into a huge thing because tsukki was ignoring iwaizumi until he said something, and then he snapped at him for him and oikawa abandoning

Hinata like he meant nothing to them, casting him aside the second things got hard. Kenma loses their appetite, award the words were not just for iwaizumi but also how he probably felt about kenma. They lay their head on the table.

‘Kuro. I fucked up.’

‘Yeah kittycat, I know.’

‘I miss him so much. I thought it was better for him but I was an idiot. I don’t know how to fix it.’

‘I can’t tell you how to fix it, but your first step is going to have to be talking to him.’ Kuroo cleans up the meal, promising to see kenma in two days time. As they lay in

Bed, they work up the courage to text hinata. It’s the first time they’ve tried to talk to him since the break up.

‘I need your help.’

‘If it’s not about apologizing and fixing things with tsukki I need at least another month before I can help you without feeling guilty!!’

‘It is.’

‘O Thank god kenma I don’t know who misses you more!! Me or him!!’

Kenma let’s out a watery laugh, glad hinata doesn’t hate them. They work out a time kenma can come over when tsukki will be home.

The actual day of confrontation has kenma feeling sick to their

Stomach. They knock on hinatas door, knowing that hinata left to do some shopping with yamaguchi. They feel like they’re about to barf when the door opens, and there’s tsukki. Its the first time they’ve been face to face since the breakup, and tsukki’s eyes widen and he moves to

Shut the door.

‘Please,’ kenma begs. ‘Can we please just talk.’

‘Should’ve known the tangerine was planning something, I knew he looked shifty.’ Tsukki hisses, before walking away, leaving the door open. Kenma steps inside, trying to convince themselves that the fact that

Tsukki Is still wearing one of Kenma’s stolen hoodies is a good sign. They sit in the living room, on separate couches.

‘I really fucked up, Kei.’ Kenma cuts right to the chase. They explain how they were feeling, and tsukki counters that they should’ve talked to him. That

Their relationship was a two way street and kenma crushed it. There’s a lot of tears, a lot of ‘how can I make this right?’ And ‘how am I supposed to trust you with my love again?’ Before they come to a decision. Kenma suggests they try a couples therapy, that they don’t expect

Tsukki to jump right back into where they were. Tsukki agrees, and they both pull up Google and find one then and there and set an appointment. Kenma, happy that tsukki was willing to hear them out, goes to leave when tsukki stops them. Says that it doesn’t mean he forgives them,

But if kenma leaves without touching tsukki at all, it will be the first thing he brings up at therapy. Kenma, heart 100 times lighter from seeing and talking to tsukki again, agrees. They end up curled in tsukki’s bed, asleep, with tsukki laying directly on top of kenma.

Therapy is hard work, and it takes time, but eventually they announce to their friends that yes, they are dating again. Kenma takes a very long break from stream, explaining to his chat that they were just in such a bad place from it, that it almost cost them the best thing in

Their life, but with time they return to stream as well. It’s late one night, tsukki asleep next to kenma in /their/ bed, when kenma sees a new post from hinata. He’s standing in between oikawa and iwaizumi, in front of oikawa’s place in Argentina. It’s captioned ‘tsukki! I know

You just moved back out but uh, wanna water the plants for a bit?’ Kenma laughs, double tapping the picture before rolling over and curling into tsukki’s chest.

End.