Calling in Love
Kenma loaded up the game, staring down at his hands, lightly tapping at the table. This was gonna be hard, but he could do it. Right?
Yamaguchi stopped his crafting in animal crossing for a split second to glance at the phone by his side. Nothing. They had been dating for months now, and valentine’s day was on Saturday, tomorrow. He hoped Kenma would call him, but he knew he had no guarantee. He didn’t like to text first since he knew of Kenma’s schedule. Wake up, go to school, do volleyball, regret it, come home, take a nap most days, and game for a while. It’s not that he didn’t have time for Yamaguchi or forgot, he would always message him throughout the day, while gaming, everything, just today he had been a little bit distant. He texted him less than usual today, telling him he was only thinking and to not worry.
And yes, while Yamaguchi had worried at the beginning, he trusted kenma. He knew Kenma. It would take him a while to fully decide if something was a good idea, or not, if he was ready for it.
He was about to go to the beach to try for a new fish for the fifth time today, when he heard his phone go off. Looking at it, he found Kenma, asking to be on call.
Yamaguchi accepted, listening to the faint music coming from Kenma’s computer no doubt, adding quiet background music to whatever game he was playing. Yamaguchi smiled, appreciating the cute and small things his boyfriend always did. “Hey k-” He cut himself off, taking a second for himself. “Kenma.”
He had no idea it would be this hard to not call his boyfriend a pet name when he agreed to it. When he had found the note in his locker at the training camp, telling him of Kenma’s feelings, he had accepted them without resistance. Sure they had a small problem before the letter, but it had managed to take every single ounce of worry off his chest. Kenma had liked him back, he didn’t hate him for liking him. Yamaguchi was a giggly, smiley mess when telling the shorter boy he would date him.
When Kenma had told him he had a bit of a problem with pet names so early, Yamaaguchi was shocked. He hadn’t heard of anything like that before, but he knew it made sense for the other. He agreed without missing a beat.
Now, months later, two seasons later, he still hadn’t gotten any sort of sign saying he could call Kenma anything other than his name. He didn’t hate it, he wanted Kenma to be as comfortable with him as possible, but he had not expected it to be so hard.
“Hey Tadashi,” Yamaguchi barely stopped himself from swooning. The way he said it was so.. perfect. “I’m gonna strip mine for a while, and I know it’s hard for me to answer, so I figured a call would be better.” He could basically hear the shrug and small smile in his voice.
“You know that’s perfectly fine with me.” He chuckled, slightly heading towards the shore with his new fishing rod. “Oh! Do you wanna hear what happened at practice today?”
Kenma laughed quietly at his boyfriend’s clear excitement. He wanted to tell him and who was Kenma to refuse. “You said something crazy happened right? Go ahead.”
So Yamaguchi started explaining everything, from how he tripped coming into practice because he forgot about the top step, to how Asahi had to run back at the end of practice because he had locked his phone in the clubroom, but he mainly explained their mid practice chaos caused by none other than the problem children, a nickname “lovingly” given to them by Ukai.
“Noya had special practice with me, where he had to try and catch my jump float serves, and you know, for me it was fun trying to get him to miss them. It’s slightly less fun, but definity more encouraging doing against daichi, since he is our captain and filled to the brim with helpful words and compliments when we're trying you know.” Yamaguchi ranted, watching his avatar run to another stream. “So, I decided to try a slam serve too, and they both start the same so Noya had no idea. He managed to stop it, but not correctly. So we watched this ball fly out of our practice area, right at Tanaka. When it hit him, like square in the back of the head, he basically started throwing them at noya like it was dodgeball or something. Then Noya started to throw them back, and eventually they managed to get Hinata in on Noya’s side, and he told Kageyama he could win in a match of dodgeball, so he joined Tanaka.” The boy was giggling between some words, as Kenma laughed at the story.
“The best part was that no one could get them to stop, since Kiyoko, Daichi, Ukai, and Takeda were all talking in the teachers lounge about a practice game. Yachi was honestly having a heart attack, and Suga would have joined in if he didn’t want to get in trouble. Ennoshita looked like he was just gonna let them go and get in trouble with the coach. They only stopped when one ball from Tanaka managed to hit a pole of the net and make it trip over. So we all got a break from practice as they reset the gym.” Both of them were calming down from laughing for a little bit as they sat in the comfortable quiet. Yamaguchi watched as his fishing rod was pulled out empty, again and he left out a small huff.
“Sounds like you’ve had a crazy day…” Kenma took a deep breath, seeming to try and calm himself. Yamaguchi glazed at the phone, curious why. “Huh, babe?”
Huh
Babe?
Babe?
Babe!
Yamaguchi sat up quickly, his face formed into a look of pure love, shock, and most of all joy. “Did you? Wait! Hold on!” Yamguchi took his phone in hand, game completely forgotten. “Did you just call me?”
“Babe? Yes, I did.” Kenma smiled at his boyfriend’s reaction. He had been thinking about how to tell Yamaguchi he would call him nicknames for a week now. Only last night did he decide this idea was the best. Why did he ever think this was going to end badly?
“Does that mean I-”
“Yes you can give me pet names too,” Kenma answered, tapping away on the table again, Yamaguchi’s excitement had drawn all the nervousness and dread from his body, replacing it with his own excitement and joy.
“Oh my god!” Kenma heard the phone get thrown back on the bed and Yamaguchi pace around the room for maybe one minute before he tackled the device. “Can i come see you? Right now? Please kitten?”
Kenma’s heart skipped a beat. Kitten? “Yeah of course you can.” He heard more shuffling on the other side. Yamaguchi was getting dressed. “You can sleepover if you want.” Part of him wished he had never said that, but he knew he had to. He wanted Yamaguchi with him. He needed Yamaguchi with him during the holiday of love. He didn’t even want a gift, he just wanted to wake up to Yamaguchi getting his morning cup of coffee, which kenma only had for him, and smiling at him. A kiss would be worth ten million yen.
“You… want me to sleepover so we can spend… Valentines- Valentine's day together?” Kenma regretted not using his camera. He wanted to see Yamaguchi so bad. He knew his face was red, hiding his freckles and acne in an adorable blush. “I would love to! I’ll go tell mom so she can drive me! Do you mind telling me the names you don’t like on the way?”
“Yeah i don’t mind at all.”
“Do you like chocolate?”
“What kind of question is that? I mean who doesn’t?”
“Well, i mean Tsukki doesn’t because he's lactose intolerant.”
“Are you serious?”
“Just answer the question!”
“Yes, I do. I can’t eat a lot of it at once but..”
“Perfect…” Yamaguchi whispered. There was a loud zipper noise from Yamaguchi zipping his bag, only slightly too quickly. “I’ll be there soon, okay?”
“Yeah, see you baby.” The word felt like honey on his tongue. It was thick, and hard to get out but was oh so good.
“Bye Kitten.” Yamaguchi left the call and Kenma had to sit there by himself as he thought about what he had done. He loved it, he couldn’t picture time, he was happier. He knew someone that would be excited for him, even if he was going to tease him for being whipped, Kuroo. AT this point he didn’t care how many days, weeks, maybe months, he would be teased about this, he needed to do something to help with this fuzzy feeling filling his chest