Kenma found it almost funny how some people could be so appealing in every way while everyone looked dull and plain and boring and a little frightening. Kenma didn't like people, and so he made it a rule to avoid them as much as was physically possible. There were very few exceptions to this rule.

One exception was Kuroo. Then again, Kenma wasn't entirely sure if friends who had been around since you were little counted as people anymore. To be completely honest, after a certain amount of time, it felt almost as if Kuroo had become an extension of Kenma's own mind. They knew each other so well that they could tell exactly what was going on in the other's head with a sideways glance. Kenma knew that that skill was likely more helpful for Kuroo than it was for him, but it was nice to know that he had someone who could see through his bullshit and get him to talk when something was seriously wrong.

Another exception was Lev. Somehow, as tall and annoying as he was, Lev had grown o Kenma to the point where Kenma almost considered him a friend. Almost. Of course, it probably helped that Lev had been there to help Kenma through one of his less severe anxiety attacks. Kuroo had been sick and Kenma had managed to convince himself to drag himself to school, but it had turned out to be too much in the end. It resulted in Kenma curled up in a corner of an empty classroom with Lev stroking the insides of his wrists and whispering surprisingly gentle reassurances to Kenma. Well, for Lev it had been a whisper; to every other person in the world it was a normal volume. Still, it had helped, and Kenma supposed he was glad that Lev had been there.

The third exception was the most vexing to Kenma. Shouyou was the third person who went against the grain of everything Kenma had learned to believe. Even as different as he already was, he was an even stranger creature than Kuroo or Lev because he had a different sort of appeal. Shouyou had managed to worm his way into Kenma's affections little by little, even though he was excitable and energetic and loud and always moving around, all of which being character traits that Kenma did his best to avoid at all costs. Even then, Shouyou was something different from Kuroo and Lev. Something more.

Kenma found himself trailing his eyes along Shouyou's surprisingly curvy figure when he was playing a match; his gaze was drawn to Shouyou's lips and eyes when he talked because his mouth was so fast and fluent that it was mesmerizing and the way his eyes lit up when he was talking about things he was passionate like volleyball was absolutely entrancing. Kenma noticed that sort of behavior more and more often, so he began to analyze how he acted around his other exceptions.

Neither Kuroo nor Lev drew Kenma's eyes the way Shouyou did. Because of this, Kenma was almost convinced that Shouyou was an alien or a fascinating, albeit rather terrifying, anomaly. Of course, the latter was much more conceivably realistic but a little part of Kenma kept whispering He's an alien.

Kenma blamed Aoba Johsai's captain.

Aliens aside, Kenma was still a little confused and more than a little worried. For one thing, Shouyou didn't even know about Kenma's anxiety – he was certain to have at least a little bit of a hunch, but Kenma hadn't found the courage to tell him, so there was no way Shouyou could know for sure. He wasn't Kuroo, who had held Kenma as he sobbed after being diagnosed with anxiety when he was six, and he wasn't Lev, who had witnessed one of Kenma's attacks first hand. Although Kenma rationally knew that it was his anxiety keeping him from telling Shouyou about it, there was still a part of him that wondered if it was really that or if Kenma just didn't trust Shouyou enough to say anything.

For another, Kenma didn't have the first clue where to start with figuring out what the deal with the looks he kept giving Shouyou was. He didn't look at Kuroo or Lev like that, but Shouyou was just so… Kenma wanted to say pretty, but that wasn't the right word. Attractive was too vague. Elegant or graceful, maybe. Alluring or captivating or mesmerizing would be even better.

Breathtaking. That was it. Shouyou was breathtaking.

Kenma wasn't sure he liked this newfound romanticism of Shouyou. It tasted a little bit like something that Kenma denied up and down because no, there was no way in hell that he was in love with one of his best friends. He couldn't be.

It wasn't so much that he had an issue with being gay. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was Shouyou, and Shouyou was an exception to his rule and the rule-makers weren't supposed to fall in love with the exceptions to their rules. That just wasn't how things were done.

That, and if he was more honest with himself, he would admit that his anxiety played a fair part in the situation. He didn't want to admit to himself that he was in love with Shouyou because that would lead to admitting it to Shouyou and that, his anxiety said, would lead to rejection, hatred, and isolation. The last thing that Kenma ever wanted was to be completely alone; he couldn't imagine not having Kuroo, at the very least, be there to help him through his spells of black days.

He had also noticed that his bad days had been much less frequent since he had fallen for Shouyou but he ignored that. That was an inconvenient loophole in his excuses to avoid letting himself or Shouyou know that he was in love with the bubbly spiker, so it wasn't worthy of his attention.

Kenma was so deep in denial that Kuroo figured it out before he'd let himself figure it out. Kuroo, who was completely oblivious to the wistful stares he was getting from one of Karasuno's backup players who Kenma though was named Ennoshita or something similar, realized that Kenma was completely head over heels for Shouyou.

After a year of pining and arguing with himself and trying to come to terms with it, Kenma realized the enormity of the situation. Not only was he in love with his best friend, but he was gay – or bi, or pan, or demi, or something to that effect. That meant that he would have to explain to everyone what was going on if and when he ever got a boyfriend. Even the thought of so much potentially negative attention made Kenma sick. He didn't care so much that people would be mad, but he watched the news. He knew about the hate crimes that happened regularly. If he confessed to Shouyou and they started dating and they came out, then Shouyou could get hurt. Shouyou could get killed.

That made up Kenma's mind. He couldn't bear to be the cause of Shouyou's suffering, so he would keep quiet and suffer on his own. He wouldn't be able to bear it if Shouyou got hurt or died because of him.

Years passed and eventually, Kenma did tell Shouyou. He had been drunk, so he wasn't sure that it counted, but Shouyou seemed happy to accept Kenma's feelings. They moved to America and got married. Shouyou proposed – Kenma would never have been able to work up the nerve – and it was loud and it was public and there were a few videos posted to the internet later but Kenma didn't mind because it was Shouyou.

He'd never tell Shouyou, but he loved being able to feel their wedding bands clack against each other when they held hands. No matter how cold the metal was to an outsider's touch, Kenma always thought it was one of the warmest things in the world. All in all, Kenma was glad that he had made an exception for Shouyou.