I've Always Loved You | Kuroo Tetsurou

eight

Both of you walked into the bakery and immediately caught onto the sweet smell of the pastries they baked.

You were in awe seeing how aesthetically pleasing the bakery was that you didn't notice Kuroo staring at you. He had never seen you so excited. A big smile was on your face now as your head moved in every direction looking at all of the decorative items.

"Go sit down, I'll order something for you." You finally paid attention to Kuroo who had the kindest smile ever. The sight of him smiling somehow made you feel warm inside. "Okay, I'm not picky so anything would be perfect." He nodded and walked up to the counter.

You sat down at a table near the windows. Looking outside into the busy street you saw a lot of couples walking around, or women walking with their children. It made you think about your mom and how she used to walk you to school when you lived here before. You also remembered how she would carry your bento box wrapped in a beautiful lilac color cloth. She would go all out in making your lunch every morning. She would still do it when you attended Itachiyama until she got sick and had to be hospitalized.

Your mom was not a women who would go to the doctors when she got sick. She would make tea's to make herself feel better, but one day she couldn't even get out of bed. She was pale and looked incredibly skinny, both your father and yourself forcefully took her to the hospital. When the doctors ran tests she was diagnosed with Huntington's disease. It was awful news since there was no cure. She only lasted two years and passed away. Her death took a toll on you during your second year of high school because you distanced yourself from your friends. Your boyfriend at the time helped you as much as he could, but he couldn't stop you from moving away. You could tell he was heart broken once you left Itachiyama, but you had no other choice. Moving back to your old neighborhood, you didn't expect to reconcile with the one boy that tried to ruin your childhood. Now that boy was at the cash register paying for your orders.

"Kiko, are you ready to go?" Kuroo snapped you out of your thoughts once he stood next to you. You smiled and nodded. He waited for you to stand up and began walking out of the bakery. Neither of you spoke again as you walked towards his house. Once you made it there he opened his front door for you.

"I'm sorry if it's dirty. I clean but I'm obviously not good at it." He awkwardly walks inside behind you and turns on the lights. It wasn't a messy house, in fact, everything was pretty clean.

"Kuroo, if you think this is dirty I apologize for having you over the other day. My room was a mess." He laughed at your comment and put the bag on the table. "Don't worry, I was worried about what your dad thought of me more than how clean your house looked." You laughed as well and walked towards his table.

He took out a cinnamon roll and a strawberry shortcake, handing you the fruity pastry. You gave him a smile. "Wow, how did you know this is one of my favorites?" He chuckled and came back into the dining room, handing you a fork.

"I didn't, I just picked whatever looked the prettiest." You could feel your cheeks warm up after what he said, so you turned around and walked towards a chair.

"Thank you." As you sat down you opened the box you didn't see the way Kuroo stared at you. He was surprised at what he said himself. He did get the strawberry shortcake because it was something pretty. In his mind, every beautiful person should own beautiful things.

After a couple of minutes of just eating, you felt full. "Oh lord, I'm so full, but it's so good." You rubbed you stomach and looked at the almost finished cake in front of you. Kuroo laughed from across the table since and took one last bite of his cinnamon roll. "Come on, you're almost done, just one last bite." Kuroo encouraged you as he crumbled up the brown paper bag where he ate his roll. "Kuroo, I can't." You whined and threw your head back. As soon as he was about to grab your cake you shot your head back up and took it from him. His eyebrows raised, "I didn't think you were going to eat it, so I was going to eat it myself."

You rolled your eyes and untucked your school shirt from your skirt. He didn't understand why you did that, but caught on once you tied your hair up and picked up the fork. Your eyebrows were furrowed and to him you looked pretty serious. He raised his hands up in defense and stepped back. You immediately started eating your cake as fast as you could so you wouldn't have time to think how full you were. Once you finished you slammed your hands on the table and gave Kuroo a big smile. You looked like a little girl when you looked up at him. There was whipped cream on the corner of your lips. He grabbed a napkin and almost wiped it away for you, but he didn't want to seem like a weirdo, so he just handed it to you. "You have some whipped cream on your lips." You took the napkin from him and cleaned yourself.

It wasn't until then that you realized how ridiculous you might have looked doing that. "Oh my goodness, I promise I don't usually eat like this. I just don't like people taking my food, especially if they're sweets." He laughed and took your empty plastic box from you and threw it away. "Sorry, I should've known you were going to finish it eventually." Both of you looked at each other and laughed.

To him this was a moment he wouldn't forget. He saw your playful side come out, which was something he never saw when you guys were younger. He wanted to get to know the real you, but he was afraid you might reject him if he tried to get close.

You hung out with Kuroo until it was time to go back home. You managed to finish the chemistry project way before it was actually due. "I think I'm going home now, it's getting pretty late." You stood up from the floor and grabbed your backpack. He was kind of sad seeing that you had to leave, but it's not like you weren't neighbors. "Let me walk you home, it's dark." He stood up and put on his shoes to walk you out, but you stopped him.

"I live across the street, I'll be fine getting home." He sighed and nodded. "Bye-bye! Thank you for having me over, see you later." You gave him a quick hug and walked out of his house.

Kuroo wanted to spend as much time with you trying to see if you would show any interest in him. He pushed you away when you were younger because he was afraid of you not liking him back. Throughout the years he didn't see you, he tried to forget about his dumb crush he had on you, but it simply wouldn't go away. He hated that the last bit of time he spent with you ended up with you leaving him and never coming back. That was until the day he saw you at Nekoma high school. He was so overwhelmed with emotions that day, he didn't know how to approach you. It seemed like boys were all over you and it broke his heart a little bit. He noticed his body had matured as he aged, but forgot girls' bodies also do that. Seeing you all grown up and even more beautiful than when you were kids brought back his silly childhood crush. Only this time he wasn't going to push you away. He wants the both of you to get to know each other well, and eventually you would share the same feelings he felt for you.

Too bad for him, he didn't know you shared the same feelings when you were younger.