Why is my kitten more afraid of us when he is playing?

My wife and I adopted two kittens a couple weeks ago, they were 3 months and 5 months old at the time. The 5 month old cat was already very friendly and energetic. The 3 month cat started out very afraid of us, although he has improved greatly. When he is in a relaxed mood, he will enjoy being pet and purr loudly. He has not climbed up onto us yet, but we have tried to handle him anyway to get him more used to it. He used to always try to get away, but now he will often stay and fall asleep. My main point of confusion is why he changes when he is playing. He will often play with our other kitten. They play very hard, they will run all over our apartment, meow a lot, and jump and wrestle. We also try to spend a decent amount of time each day playing with them ourselves. However, when our kitten is playing, even if it is with us, he will suddenly become very afraid of sudden movements and us trying to reach out to him. We think this might be him just running from us playfully, but his eyes look so scared, and he moves in a way that makes us believe he is likely not playful but scared. It is so strange to us how he will run in fear from us but gladly run back if we move a toy around, only to run away again if he gets too close to us or if we move at all. We think this might be because, for the first day, my wife was trying to coax him out from under our bed so we could get him out of the bedroom, because we were worried about him not eating or using the litterbox if he was stuck under the bed all day. She would try to get him to move forward with toys, then when he got close, grab him. This was the only time he hissed at us, and when we did get a grip on him, it wasn't pleasant trying to drag him out. At the time, we did this because we were concerned about him, but now, we are worried it might have created some sort of negative association between our toys and us. Will cats remember negative interactions like this to a degree that it will cause lasting damage, or is there some other reason for his fearfulness while playing? Thanks!

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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/odjfz5/why_is_my_kitten_more_afraid_of_us_when_he_is/