get rucked

by dicaeopolis

Oikawa's feeling the tiniest bit lonely during her first week of college. Her next-door neighbors know just the way to make her feel better. (Rule 63, bokuoikuroo, college rugby AU)

Oikawa didn't feel lonely, okay. It was the first week of college - everyone was lonely, everyone was nervous, everyone was anxious to make friends. Oikawa didn't feel lonely - she felt normal.

Which is why, when she hadn't managed to make a single close friend by the end of the week, she was fine with it. Which is why, when she spent the entirety of the first Saturday afternoon of college on a Skype group call with Mattsun and Makki and Iwa-chan, she didn't cry a little bit afterwards. Which is why, when her next-door neighbor stopped her in the hallway early that evening and said that a group of the freshmen in her dorm were going to pregame in some Konoha's room on the next floor up and then go to some party and would she like to come with, she hesitated a full eighth of a second before accepting.

Couldn't seem desperate, after all.

Oikawa vaguely remembered the next-door neighbor in question from their first floor meeting with the RA. Her hair was a wild tangle of thick black that, infuriatingly, suited her, and her eyes were half-lidded but keen. She'd said during the meeting that her name was Kuroo Tetsurou, and that, like about half of their floor, she was local - her house was only about twenty minutes from campus. She and her roommate, who missed the meeting but was noisy enough that Oikawa often heard her clearly through their shared wall, were both freshmen like Oikawa, but they had both been at school for two weeks already as athletes recruited to the rugby team.

Kuroo hadn't said during the meeting that she invited relative strangers to parties with her, but whatever. Oikawa didn't exactly have room to complain.

Kuroo came by around nine thirty, wearing a leather jacket and tiny shorts and a pair of combat boots just this side of pop punk, and Oikawa waited a moment to answer the knock on her door to pretend she hadn't been waiting since eight forty-five. She followed her down the hall and up one flight of stairs, looking anywhere but the miniscule shorts swaying ahead of her.

Is she doing that on purpose…?

Konoha's room was already crowded when they got there, but their host, a girl with sandy hair and a narrow face, greeted them at the door. "Hey, you made it!" She hugged Kuroo briefly. "Who's this?"

Oikawa met Konoha's piercing eyes with the Venus flytrap of a smile that had served her well on the court all through high school. "Oikawa Tooru. Nice to meet you."

"Konoha Akinori." Konoha shook her hand, which was weirdly formal, and then hugged her too, which was weirdly not.

"My next-door neighbor," Kuroo added. "Where's beefcake? She'd already left when me and Oikawa headed up."

"Oh, Bokuto? Your dear roommate is up to her usual again." Konoha gestured behind her to where a girl with an awful silver dye job but impressive biceps was busily assembling jagerbombs on Konoha's desk. "She's trying to beat her record from her last spring break."

"I'll help clean up the fallout," Kuroo muttered dryly, and Konoha barked a sharp laugh.

"She makes for good stories, at least. But hey, you're here to drink, right? Help yourself, what's mine is yours." Konoha swept her arm out towards an impressive array of bottles on the windowsill. "I'm gonna go get in on whatever Bokuto's up to. See you around, Kuroo, Oikawa." With a wave, she disappeared into the crowd of bodies, leaving Oikawa with Kuroo again.

"I'm gonna go check in with Yaku, okay?" Kuroo nodded towards a tiny girl, sitting on Konoha's bed and staring into her solo cup as though it contained all the answers to the universe. "I'll meet you over by the booze."

And then Oikawa was alone. She went over the row of bottles, reached out for one, pulled her hand back, and looked them over carefully.

Um… How much alcohol was the right amount of alcohol?

Oikawa picked up a bottle of something amber-colored with a yellow label that read FIREBALL, and took a red solo cup from the stack. She glanced back and forth between the two, then up at the rest of the girls in the room, who were all sipping from similar cups - except for Konoha, who had stolen Bokuto's bottle of Jagermeister and was pouring it down her throat with one hand as she fended off her indignant friend with the other.

One cup is one drink, right?

Oikawa unscrewed the cap from the bottle of Fireball and poured it out, watching the golden-brown liquid splash into the cup. She filled it nearly to the brim, and then recapped the bottle and put it back on the windowsill. So far, so good.

The first taste was awful. Fireball was acrid and cinnamon-flavored and burned down her throat and against her tongue, and her lips instantly puckered up like a dissatisfied blowfish. But Oikawa had a mission now, and she managed to swallow down her first full mouthful with only minimal grimacing.

She stayed there by the window, sipping and watching the crowd and slowly growing accustomed to the unpleasant taste. A few of the faces there were familiar from around the dorm - Bokuto and Kuroo, Konoha and Yaku now, a girl named Daishou with snakebite piercings and glossy green hair. Her head was beginning to feel warm and hazy, like the occasional glasses of wine her parents allowed her on holidays, by the time her neighbor finally returned.

"You ready?" Kuroo asked. Her breath smelled like vodka, but her eyes were still alert, and moved over Oikawa with a disconcertingly shrewd gaze. "We're about to head over."

"Oh, yeah, sure." She downed the rest of the cup, wrinkling her nose at the taste, then followed Kuroo out, stumbling only a little over the threshold. Konoha and Bokuto went with them, still arguing over the Jagermeister. As they emerged into the warm September night, Oikawa half-fell down the steps outside their dorm, and Kuroo automatically put a hand under her elbow to steady her.

"Hey, you okay?"

Oikawa frowned at her,. "Of course I am."

"How much did you have?"

"Um… One."

"One what?"

"One Fireball."

Kuroo let out a confused half-laugh. "What?"

Oikawa crossed her arms defensively. "I had one solo cup of Fireball."

It took her a few steps to realize Kuroo had stopped. She turned around to face the other girl. "What?"

"You had an entire solo cup of Fireball," Kuroo repeated.

"It was just one!"

Kuroo whistled, long and low, and started walking again. "You're in for a night."

"I feel fine," Oikawa insisted.

"Alright, let's see how long that lasts."

"I know my limits, okay!"

"So you know exactly how far past them you've gone? Perfect."

Kuroo was riling her up on purpose at this point and she knew it, but she still couldn't help bristling. Infuriatingly, her huff only made Kuroo smirk wider down at her. The nascent argument was quelled when Bokuto fell into step next to Oikawa.

"Hey! You live next door to me!"

"Yeah." Oikawa smiled at her, and then paused, surprised by her own sincerity. There was something endearing about Bokuto's combination of ridiculous hair, goofy grin, and bulging triceps.

"I hear you singing Taylor Swift a lot," Bokuto announced to Oikawa and to the world at large, and went on before Oikawa could process her own embarrassment. "Are you on any teams yet?"

"I played volleyball in high school, but I'm not on the team her-"

"Konoha!" Bokuto hollered, far too loudly considering Konoha was only about two feet away. "Fresh meat!"

"What, the pretty one? I already met her. Don't you dare recruit her for rugby," Konoha said. "You can't ruin a face like that."

Oikawa flushed a little, although she chose to blame it on the alcohol rather than being called pretty. She was well aware that she was pretty. A cute girl calling her pretty didn't-

"Hey now," Kuroo cut in. She dropped back to loop an arm over Oikawa's shoulders, and Oikawa willed her face not to burn - this was so not her element. "This pretty one's mine."

"Says who?" Bokuto cried indignantly. "I was talking to her! About Taylor Swift!"

"I found her first," Kuroo countered.

Konoha looked about three hundred percent done with the shenanigans happening behind her. "Oikawa, whose are you?"

"Bokuto's," Oikawa answered instantly.

"What?" Kuroo protested. "Why?!"

Oikawa grinned and wrapped an arm around an elated Bokuto's waist. This was her element. "Cause she didn't make fun of my drink."

Bokuto frowned in disapproval at her roommate across Oikawa. "Kuroo, you dick."

"No, you didn't see," Kuroo argued, "she had literally an entire solo cup full of-"

"And yet I'm barely past pleasantly tipsy," Oikawa mused. "Maybe it's you who's got the wrong idea."

Kuroo gaped at her, and Oikawa smiled serenely back. On her other side, Bokuto looked positively delighted.

"I like her! Konoha, she's gotta join rugby," Bokuto told Konoha. "You gotta join rugby," she added to Oikawa. "You're making fun of Kuroo, you gotta."

"What does that have to do with anything?!" Kuroo objected.

"Cause I love making fun of you, and I'm great at rugby!" Bokuto answered instantly.

"That's not how it works, you brainless feathery asshole," Konoha said ahead of them.

"Don't you think a tough attitude is inherently important to the sport?"

Konoha narrowed her eyes, opened her mouth, closed it again, and kept walking with her steps a little sharper than before.

"Feathery?" Oikawa asked.

"Oh." Kuroo chuckled a little. "Apparently Bokuto's and Konoha's high school mascot was the Owls. And you can't tell me you don't see the resemblance." Sure enough, there was something distinctly owl-like about Bokuto's hooked nose, golden eyes, and disastrous hairstyle.

"Hey!" Bokuto protested. "Like you're not the same with cats!"

"Maybe you're both just furries," Oikawa suggested.

Kuroo sniffed a little. "Rugby accepts everyone, but not furries."

"Kuroo, that's not important!" Bokuto interrupted. "Anyway, you should totally play rugby," she pressed, turning back to Oikawa. "It's so much fun. And you've got the legs to be a back."

"Back?" Oikawa asked, indulgently. She was already starting to lose track of her train of thought, but the alcohol and the two arms wrapped around her - Bokuto's around her waist and Kuroo's still across her shoulders - made her feel a little more magnanimous. Walking was a little awkward like this, yes, but she felt deliciously warm sandwiched between the two girls, and, as an added bonus, she could feel Bokuto's bicep.

"They do a lot of running and shit. That smelly cat over there is one of them. I'm a forward, we just run into people a lot. But, more importantly, you're already giving Kuroo shit! And you're gay, right?"

Oikawa stumbled in surprise. "I- Um-" Shit, am I that obvious?

"Bokuto," Kuroo said reproachfully from her other side, "you don't just ask people that."

"It's okay," Oikawa mumbled, "she's right." And rapidly getting gayer, if we keep walking like this.

"Yeah! Like I said, you're perfect." Bokuto beamed. "And you can hold your alcohol!"

"Like I said," muttered Kuroo, "we'll see how long that lasts."

In the end, it lasted three steps onto the lawn of the house where the party was. On the fourth step, a massive wave of vertigo washed over Oikawa, flooding her with dizziness that rippled from her head down through her chest, stomach, legs, toes.

"Oh my god," she said.

"There it is," Kuroo remarked, and Oikawa was about to throw back a clever retort when her body decided that it needed to be a little closer to the lawn.

"Oh my god," she repeated to the dirt. Her head felt like it weighed about eighty pounds. She lowered it to the ground, pressing her forehead into the scratchy grass and closing her eyes. "Oh my god."

Distantly, she registered Kuroo squatting down next to her, resting a hand on her shoulder, telling her to keep her eyes open. Oikawa's brain didn't manage to get past the bit with the hand and the shoulder and how Kuroo's long, nimble fingers felt against her bare skin and - oh jesus christ, there was another swell of nausea crashing over her.

Two concerned voices circled back towards them - Bokuto and Konoha. "Oh, holy shit." Konoha sounded half-worried, half-impressed. "How much did she have?"

"A solo cup full of Fireball," Kuroo answered.

There were sharp twin gasps.

"Of Fireball?" That was Bokuto. "Kuroo, why didn't you tell her that was too much?"

"I did, you dipsh-"

The argument was interrupted by the contents of Oikawa's stomach introducing themselves to the crisp night air. Konoha expressed mild disgust in the form of a quiet "Shiiiit".

"Sushi!" Bokuto announced, pointing at the vomit. "Right, Oikawa?"

Oikawa managed some sort of noise, although she didn't have the capabilities to make it an affirmative or negative one.

"We gotta get her home," Kuroo continued, clearly pretending she hadn't heard that exchange. "Oikawa, are you good to walk?"

"Uh huh," Oikawa answered. Then she threw up again.

"Ouch," Konoha said.

"I can carry her," Bokuto offered - and, oh, that was a very nice suggestion.

"Oikawa, do you want to walk?" Kuroo repeated.

"Absolutely not," Oikawa answered, and smiled to herself a little.

"Well, she's capable of hitting on you, so she can't be that bad," Kuroo said drily to Bokuto.

"She's hitting on me?"

"Yeah."

"Hell yeah!" And then Bokuto's arms were wrapping around her, lifting her up effortlessly and carrying her bridal style. Oikawa buried her whirling head in her savior's burly shoulder, and Bokuto made a soft noise of pity. Normally, Oikawa would've resented being pitied, but at this point, she just accepted that she deserved it.

The proximity to Bokuto's deltoids helped soothe the sting, also.

"Alright, I'll go back to the dorm with you. Konoha, you go ahead," Kuroo directed her friend. "You were planning on chilling with Shirofuku tonight, right?"

"Uh, I was, but she can wait if you need me."

"Nah, it's fine," Kuroo told her. "We'll take care of her. Gotta look out for our future teammate, you know."

"I already told you, do not let her break that face playing rugby."

"Too late, bro," Bokuto answered gleefully. Oikawa could feel the rumbling in her chest against her cheek. "She's ours now."

Oikawa drifted in and out of consciousness for the duration of the walk home, head still swimming with half-formed confusion. She only stirred when Kuroo opened the door of the dorm and the bright lights of the foyer shone down on her - along with the disapproving gaze of a few sober people.

The three of them lived on the ground floor, thankfully. Oikawa wasn't sure if she could've handled vertical movement. They were halfway down the hallway when a gurgle escaped from Oikawa's throat, and the churning in her stomach began to condense. She squeezed Bokuto's bicep urgently to indicate her situation, and also just because.

"Mmhmm?" Bokuto glanced down at her. "Oh, Kuroo, she's really pale - oh, oh no, there she goes again-"

With a significant amount of help, Oikawa made it to the first stall of the bathroom before she started throwing up again. Through the spinning in her head and the roaring in her ears, she vaguely felt one hand rubbing soothing circles into her back, two more pulling her chestnut-brown hair away from her face, and a fourth holding her limp hand. She retched one last time, closed her eyes, and began to lower her head down.

"No, no, no you don't." Kuroo's hand slid lightning-swift between Oikawa's face and the toilet seat before she could press her cheek against something very unpleasant. "C'mon, miss One Fireball, up and at em."

Oikawa's room was two doors down. Kuroo glanced at the door, then at the girl draped against Bokuto's broad shoulders.

"Oikawa, is the door unlocked?"

Oikawa groaned incoherently.

"Alright," Kuroo said, and tried the door. It was unlocked. "Nice room."

"She got a single," Bokuto observed, entering behind her. "Lucky girl. No offense, bro."

"No, I feel the same. Full offense. Your rugby shorts are practically fermenting."

"Aw, piss off."

Bokuto looked between the ugly teal loveseat squeezed in by the window and Oikawa's messy bed, then plopped Oikawa's limp body down on the sheets. Immediately, Oikawa slid off and into a crumpled heap on the floor. Vaguely, she noticed the scratchiness of the rug beneath her.

"Oh dear," Bokuto's muffled voice said to Kuroo. Out of Oikawa's sight, Kuroo nodded in agreement.

"Bokuto, how do you feel about a sleepover tonight?"

"Bro, we have a sleepover every night."

"I mean here. With her. If she throws up in her sleep, she could choke on it and die."

"She can't play rugby with us if she's dead," Bokuto acknowledged. Then hands were on Oikawa's shoulders as Bokuto took hold of her and propped her up against the bed. Next to her, Bokuto's warm body sat down so that she'd have something to lean on.

"My thoughts exactly." Kuroo sat down on Oikawa's other side and gently shook her shoulder. "Hey, Oikawa?" Oikawa dragged one eye open. "We're gonna stay here and keep an eye on you. Are you ready to go to sleep?"

"'M a little bit lonely," Oikawa admitted.

Fuck. That wasn't the question.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Bokuto asked. Her voice was surprisingly gentle.

"Not really," Oikawa said, and then did anyway. "S'a little hard - don't really know anyone…"

"Aw." Bokuto tilted her head sideways to rest on top of Oikawa's, the closest she could get to a hug without moving her shoulders and letting Oikawa fall. "You haven't had the best week, have you?"

Oikawa shook her head - and immediately regretted it. Horrible dizziness throbbed through her head, and she slumped forward.

"Oh - hey, don't do that - come here." Kuroo wrapped her arm around Oikawa's shoulders and pulled her up. Oikawa sagged against her, but at least she was upright.

On her other side, Bokuto was warm and solid. Without really thinking about it, Oikawa reached over and fitted their hands together. Bokuto squeezed once and then started rubbing circles into the back of her hand. Her palm was calloused and strong, and Oikawa stared down and marveled through her haze at how her own fingers were dwarfed by the other girl's.

The three of them fit together well like this, and Oikawa was thoroughly confused by it.

Why're they being so nice to me?

"It'll be okay," Kuroo said, taking her other hand. Oikawa blinked down at their intertwined fingers. "It's just the first week, you know? You've got plenty of time - classes haven't even started yet. And, hey, you can always join rugby. Make this big lump happy." Her voice lifted with fondness at the mention of Bokuto.

Oikawa's capability to respond was borderline, so instead she just let her eyes droop and focused on breathing in, out, in, out.

"How ya doin?" Bokuto asked her, rubbing her back a little.

Oikawa opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Rolled her tongue around the inside of it.

"I," she mumbled, "am a tiny bit drunk."

Bokuto started laughing, and Kuroo's chest shook a few times too. "Bro, I really like her."

"Me too, Bo," Kuroo answered, softer. "Me too."

They fell quiet for a moment, and Oikawa's eyes finally fluttered closed as she lost her final grip on consciousness.

After a minute or so, Kuroo looked down at her. Oikawa's breathing was still faster than normal, but it was even and a little slower than before. "Oh, looks like she's out."

"In the morning…" Bokuto began.

"...we'll recruit her for rugby," Kuroo finished, and fist bumped her from across Oikawa's body.

Bokuto grinned. "You get me, bro."

---

The first thing Oikawa registered was that her stomach felt like a cement mixer, and her head wasn't much better. Underneath her, the ground was harder and itchier than her bed - the rug. She was on the rug. She groaned aloud, squeezing her eyes more tightly shut.

"Morning, sunshine," said a familiar voice, with just a hint of laughter. Oikawa peeled her eyelids open, which felt like picking apart nearly-but-not-quite-dried Elmer's glue, and blinked blearily up at the speaker.

Kuroo Tetsurou. Ridiculous black bedhead. Looking down at her with a lazy, catlike grin.

Oikawa sat up, and instantly thought better of it. She collapsed back down onto the rug, making a pathetic mewling noise.

"Hangover!" said another voice, much louder. This one originated from Bokuto Koutarou, spiky silver hair tufted up ridiculously on one side, sprawled out on the ugly teal loveseat by the window. "I knew you'd have one! Should've been drinking water."

"Bokuto," Oikawa mumbled, "shut up."

"How do you feel?" Kuroo asked, sitting down on the side of her bed.

"Like I got hit by a bus." Oikawa rubbed her eyes, blinked a few times, attempted to dig through her sluggish recollection of the previous night.

Pregaming. Walking for a while. Throwing up on someone's lawn. After that, her memories were mostly blank.

"Greasy food will help," Kuroo told her. "Want to get breakfast?"

"Breakfast!" Bokuto added, somehow even louder than groaned in misery again.

The dining hall did custom omelets on Sunday mornings, probably for this exact reason. Oikawa got red peppers and onions, Kuroo went with simple cheddar, and Bokuto chose mozzarella cheese - with pickles from the salad bar..

"That's disgusting," Oikawa told her as they wove their way through a crowd of equally hungover students.

"Don't knock it til you try it," Bokuto countered.

"I agree with Oikawa," Kuroo put in.

"Kuroo, don't criticize her."

"You just-"

"She really is a dick," Bokuto agreed, looping her free arm through Oikawa's elbow.

"Don't gang up on me!" Kuroo protested over Oikawa's giggles and Bokuto's louder laughter.

They found a table in a corner that was quiet and dim enough to somewhat placate Oikawa's hangover, and she and Kuroo took their seats while Bokuto went off to get a second heaping plate of the calories she needed to maintain what she called her "mad gainz". Oikawa took a careful bite of her breakfast. It wasn't half bad.

"Hey, I didn't do anything embarrassing, did I?" she asked Kuroo. The question had been weighing on her since she'd woken up with a memory more riddled with holes than the U.S. government's official statements about extraterrestrial life.

"You had sex with three different people and mooned the dean," Kuroo said, and Oikawa choked on her omelet.

"What!"

"I'm kidding." Kuroo grinned at her around a mouthful of egg. "You threw up a few times and we brought you home. Stayed to make sure you didn't choke on your vomit in your sleep."

Oikawa groaned. "You're terrible."

"I'm nice," Kuroo disagreed. "I could've left you to die so me and Bo would have an extra room."

"No way - if I died, would I be able to join rugby?" She remembered that conversation, at least, with Bokuto going on about forwards and backwards and probably some other directions too.

Kuroo raised an eyebrow over her cup of orange juice. "So you'll join rugby?"

Wait - shit. Oikawa swallowed, too quickly. "I didn't say-"

"I'm back!" Bokuto announced, too loud. Oikawa yelped softly and let her head drop down onto the table. Bokuto looked stricken. "Oh, shit, sorry!"

"Just shhhhhh," Oikawa pleaded.

They walked back to their dorm together afterwards - Kuroo and Bokuto soaking up the Sunday-morning sun, Oikawa squinting balefully at it and pressing her hands to her eyelids to alleviate her headache. Bokuto sang snatches of songs as they walked, a little off-key, and occasionally Kuroo filled in a lyric or caught hold of Bokuto's hand and danced a few steps along the sidewalk with her. As they passed the library, Oikawa managed to focus enough to join in and start harmonizing. Her clear, high voice fit well with Bokuto's deeper one.

They approached the dorm, and Kuroo made an attempt at beatboxing for about half a measure before Oikawa unceremoniously shut her down. Bokuto swiped them in while they argued behind her.

"We left some stuff," Bokuto explained, following Oikawa into her room. But she and Kuroo lingered, even after Kuroo found her jacket and Bokuto dug her phone out of the cushions of the loveseat.

Oikawa raised an eyebrow at the pair of them, Bokuto wandering around aimlessly and fiddling with her knicknacks, Kuroo leaning against the door of the closet and staring around the room in open curiosity. "Can I help you?"

Bokuto clicked on her radio, and snickered at the twangy guitar floating out of the speakers. "Country?"

Oikawa felt a twinge of embarrassment at her taste - but Bokuto started singing along to the lyrics about a pair of jeans that fit just right, so at least she wasn't in it alone. Then Bokuto stopped exploring, pulled out Oikawa's desk chair, and sat backwards, straddling the chair with her arms crossed over the back.

"Make yourself at home," Oikawa deadpanned.

"Thanks, bro!"

She didn't really mind their presence, but her skin still felt sticky and gross, and she was sure her hair was a disaster. "If there's nothing else, I do need to shower."

"Actually, there is one other thing." Kuroo rubbed the back of her neck."Uh, you talked for a while last night, about being lonely here."

Oikawa stilled.

"You can laugh," she bit out vitriolic, gripping onto the last vestiges of her pride.

"No, no! Jeez. I just thought you'd want to know what you said." This was deeply suspicious. "Um, I thought it'd be kind of douchey if we knew what happened and didn't tell you, and…"

Oikawa squinted at Kuroo, who gave her a tentative half-smile in return.

"You're being…nice."

Kuroo's smile grew a bit. "I told you, I'm nice."

"Pisses me off," Oikawa muttered to herself.

Kuroo smirked. "I'll remember that. Anyway, uh, I wanted to tell you when you were sober. Rugby's good for that. The, uh, friends business."

Oikawa's stomach churned hard with embarrassment. "I don't need-"

But that was a lie. She did need, and soon.

"She's right," added Bokuto, who had been surprisingly quiet. Her face was open and earnest, and Oikawa could feel herself weakening. "Rugby's great, but it's not just about the sport, you know? We have socials on Thursday nights, where we drink and sing rugby songs and shit, and we do events together, and most of us are gay so it feels way more comfortable being around each other than straight people. It's a really tight squad."

"It's kind of like joining a cult, actually," Kuroo mused.

"Definitely," Bokuto agreed. "But in a good way."

Oikawa frowned at her hands. She hated giving in, but…

One. She needed friends.

Two. A team so close it could be a cult? In the aching absence of her high school volleyball team, who had been not only teammates but friends and practically family, she couldn't think of anything she'd like better.

Three. Bokuto's quadriceps looked very defined around her chair right now.

"I'll think about it," she mumbled.

It was a yes, and Kuroo knew it. Her smile curved bigger. "Our open practice is at five on Monday, on the pitch next to the sports center." She offered a hand to Bokuto, helping her up from the desk chair.

"I didn't say I'd join yet," Oikawa countered.

Sly amusement twitched at the corners of Kuroo's mouth and danced in her eyes. "If you say so." She linked her hands together and stretched her arms above her head. "I mean, hey, you could also just come over to our room sometime. We know just the way to make you feel better - right, Bo?"

Bokuto grinned at her friend. "I know exactly what you're talking about, bro."

What.

Oikawa gaped at them for a second, looking back from one smirk to another.

"Ex-excuse me?"

Kuroo smirked back. "You heard me. I promise, you'll feel so relaxed afterwards."

Oikawa spluttered. "I - what - you-" The pair looked thoroughly amused, and Oikawa's cheeks flushed. "Get out!"

"Suit yourself. We'll see you Monday." Kuroo left, with another lazy-tomcat grin thrown over her shoulder at Oikawa. Bokuto gave her a friendly smile and followed.

Was that normal? Did they normally just solicit people like that? Oikawa was pretty sure this didn't happen to most people on their first week of college.

She needed a second opinion. And there was really only one place to ask for it.

11:18 A.M.

perfectkawa ✌: SOS
perfectkawa ✌: IS ANYONE ONLINE
hanamemeki: sup
perfectkawa ✌: MAKKI-CHAN
perfectkawa ✌: I THINK MY NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBORS ARE HITTING ON ME
hanamemeki: NICE
hanamemeki: wait, neighbors?
perfectkawa ✌: YES THERE ARE TWO OF THEM
hanamemeki: haha score
hanamemeki: are they your type?
perfectkawa ✌: WELL
perfectkawa ✌: THATS BESIDE THE POINT
perfectkawa ✌: THEYRE HITTING ON ME
hanamemeki: you gonna go for it?
perfectkawa ✌: WHAT
perfectkawa ✌: NO
perfectkawa ✌: they're SLEAZY
Iwaizumi Hajime: You're sleazy.
perfectkawa ✌: I AM NOT
perfectkawa ✌: ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡
matsukaweed: ;-O
perfectkawa ✌: stop doing that (;¬_¬)
matsukaweed: doing what :-?
perfectkawa ✌: YOU KNOW WHAT
hanamemeki: i think you're fine matsukawa :-)
perfectkawa ✌: STOP
Iwaizumi Hajime: Oikawa, cut it out.
Iwaizumi Hajime: :-(
perfectkawa ✌: UGH
perfectkawa ✌: ANYWAY
perfectkawa ✌: before they hit on me
perfectkawa ✌: they asked me to join rugby
hanamemeki: that's the one that's like football, right?
perfectkawa ✌: i think so?
perfectkawa ✌: they said id be good at it bc I look like I can run and im gay and I like alcohol and making fun of people
perfectkawa ✌: but also it might break my face
perfectkawa ✌: im going to the first practice on Monday
matsukaweed: bro
matsukaweed: my sister played rugby in college
matsukaweed: those girls will wreck you
perfectkawa ✌: …thats
perfectkawa ✌: kind of the idea
perfectkawa ✌: (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
Iwaizumi Hajime: Oh, Christ.

Oikawa came out of her first rugby practice bruised, dirty, and in love.

She'd been decent at volleyball, yeah, but most of her memories of gym class from elementary and middle school involved being yelled at for simply grabbing the ball and running instead of dribbling and passing it. In rugby? That was the idea.

By appearance alone, Bokuto had pinned her for a back - the cavalry of the team, who ranged out behind the offensive line and moved the ball quickly and at great distances. But Oikawa wasn't a very fast runner, and she had lean strength in her slim form, so she shoved someone's spare mouthguard into her mouth and joined Bokuto as a member of the forwards - the infantry, who threw themselves bodily against the other team's line of offense and punched holes in it for the ball to move through. She loved the first lessons in tackling, that taught her to crouch low and propel her body forward into her opponent's thighs to sweep their legs out from under them. She loved the quick, constant shouting - "With me, with me, with me! On you, on you!" that kept the field in noisy organized chaos. She loved the one-on-one practice, that involved Bokuto kicking her ass six times in a row, but offering her a smile and telling her that she was getting the hang of it at the end.

But the absolute best part of it was the scrum - eight forwards locked together into a tight, low battering ram of bodies, pressing forward with screams and straining quadriceps against the other team. They practiced their first one against a heavy, padded sled, for lack of an opposition, and Oikawa was told she would play hooker.

"Excuse me?" she whispered to Bokuto.

"You hook," Bokuto said at a normal volume, which was impressively unhelpful. But then she explained a little more, and Oikawa nodded slowly, starting to get it.

Under the coach's direction, she raised her arms high in the air. Bokuto and a perpetually-worried girl named Asahi fitted themselves in snug to her sides and locked their arms around her waist, tight enough that Oikawa was lifted a few inches off the ground as she wrapped her arms around their shoulders. She kicked her cleats a little in the air, like she was on a swing made of two overly muscled college students, and then the three of them bent and inserted their heads into the slots in the face of the sled.

Two heads squeezed in on either side of Oikawa's thighs, and two powerful shoulders pressed up against her butt. After that, Oikawa couldn't see anything but the bars of the sled ahead of her and the battered grass of the pitch at her feet, but she knew that behind her, the other five members of the scrum behind her - two locks on the inside, two flankers on the outside, and the eightman at the very back - were locking together like well-oiled gears, ready to push forward against an enemy.

"Crouch," the coach commanded once they were finally all assembled. "Bind… Set!"

With one communal grunt, the scrum lunged forward against the sled, balancing against its weight.

A tiny girl named Nishinoya circled around the scrum with sharp eyes. "Lower, Asahi," she barked. An answering whimper came from the stocky girl at Oikawa's side.

And then, Nishinoya rolled the ball onto the grass at Oikawa's feet - and Bokuto shrieked "Drive, drive, DRIVE!" - and with hard, forceful steps, the scrum drove the sled backwards across the grass.

But Oikawa had more to think about. In a real game, she'd be battling against the feet of her enemy counterpart for control of the ball - now, all she had to do was hook her foot around the ball and kick it back through the scrum to the eightman. Focus. Focus. And - got it!

"Out!" shouted the eightman, and the flankers leapt up. The rest of the scrum took longer to untangle themselves from each other.

"Alright, bring it in," called the coach once they were all upright again. The forwards formed a loose circle around her. "That was acceptable, but let's try it again, get lower this time. Remember, it's like an inchworm. Whichever team gets lower can push the other up and take away their leverage." Her eyes swept across the forwards. "Let's be England, not Canada."

This clearly made sense to everyone else. Oikawa nodded along, wondering how many national teams had scrum videos on Youtube, and what she'd have to type into the search bar to find them.

At the end of practice, they split into two groups and scrimmaged, and it was fast-paced and confusing and Oikawa was pretty sure she lost her team more points than she gained it. But the first time she lowered her shoulders, gripped the ball close to her side, and slammed straight through an enemy's attempted tackle, team whooping behind her, the adrenaline carried her through the rest of the game.

Amongst the forwards, Oikawa knew Bokuto, and, now, Asahi. After practice, as they exchanged cleats for sneakers and stretched out on the pitch, Bokuto introduced her to the two locks from the second row. Oikawa had only interacted with them previously when they shoved their shoulders against her ass. Their names were Kai and Washio, and they were both tall and dark-haired.

"Being tall makes them good locks. It's a really good thing you're here, you know. We needed a hooker," Bokuto confessed. "You have to think a lot to hook. I'm not too good at that." Her smile was slightly sheepish.

Bokuto also introduced her to some of the backs - Sarukui, who was described as "the straight one", Nishinoya, the small and energetic scrum half, and Tendou Satori, the smirking red-haired fly half. And, of course, Kuroo was a back too - the fullback, as she explained on the way to the dining hall for team dinner afterwards. "I'm at the way back - I'm the last line of defense before the try line." (The try line - the scoring line at the very end of the field, Oikawa remembered.) "If the other team breaks through the rest of our offense, it's all on me."

"Somehow, that isn't reassuring," Oikawa said drily. She was being facetious, and they both knew it - it was clear that Kuroo's long legs and quick eyes were well suited for the position.

Kuroo's mouth quirked up a little. "Then don't fuck up."

"I'll fuck up extra," Oikawa told her. "Just for you."

"I told you she was perfect," Bokuto sighed to Sarukui, throwing an arm over Oikawa's shoulders.

"Your pits reek," Oikawa said, with a note of affection. She let the arm stay.

"What, perfect for rugby?" Sarukui asked.

"Just perfect in general," Bokuto answered, and bumped her head against Oikawa's.

"You're right about that," agreed Oikawa.

In the shower that night, she poked with interest at the bruises forming on her legs, attempting to differentiate between them, streaks of dirt, and grass stains in the dim light of the stall. In the end, she managed to wash off about half of them, and let the rest stay as they would.

She'd gone to her first rugby practice, and found that she was an average rugger at best. This wasn't surprising - Oikawa had never been talented at anything as long as she could remember.

Never in her life had that stopped her from excelling.

That night, she stayed online until it was one thirty in the morning, all her Youtube suggestions were rugby videos, and Kuroo had snapchatted her a picture of herself and Bokuto with exhausted faces and the caption "go tf to sleep and stop watching the haka already".

1:36 A.M.

perfectkawa ✌: i
perfectkawa ✌: really like rugby
perfectkawa ✌: ໒( ◡ )७
Iwaizumi Hajime: Oh no.

The Thursday of the third week of college, Oikawa went to her first rugby social. It was hosted in the living room of their captain's suite, which was about as different from Oikawa's shoebox of a room as a college living space could get. Ruggers were draped over the couches, armchairs, and floor, forming a loose circle around a can of beer in the center with half a dozen playing cards stuck under its tab. In one corner, a three-legged table held an array of bottles and a stack of solo cups, and half-empty cases of beer were scattered around the floor.

Bokuto was already well past tipsy when she got there, and she greeted Oikawa with ruddy cheeks and an excited hug that started at the doorway and lasted all the way over past the drinks table and to a seat on the couch. Bokuto was touchy when she was drunk, apparently. And when she was sober. And always. Kuroo was perched on the back of the couch like a looming vulture with bad hair. She fitted her legs between Oikawa's and Bokuto's bodies, and amused herself for the rest of the evening by resting her cup on Bokuto's head and playing with Oikawa's hair against Oikawa's vehement protests.

After one round of Kings, Tendou cleared her throat and started in on a chant, and the rest of the room quickly joined in with glee and anticipation: "We call upon Washio to sing us a song - to sing us a song - to sing us a song, we call upon Washio to sing us a song, so sing, motherfucker, sing, motherfucker, sing!"

"A song?" Oikawa whispered into Bokuto's ear.

"Don't worry," Bokuto assured her aloud, "you'll pick it up soon enough."

Washio waited for a moment, staring contemplatively into her cup, and then started with a deep, resonant voice, "If I were the marrying kind…"

Several voices joined in quickly, making up in volume for what they lost in tune. "I thank the Lord I'm not, sir - the kind of rugger I would be would be a rugby-"

"Flanker, sir!" Washio announced.

"Flanker, sir?" the room cried back to her. "Why's that, sir?"

Washio grinned a little. "Cause I'd get off quick-"

"And you'd get off quick, we'd all get off quick together - we'd be alright, in the middle of the night, getting off quick together!" As they finished the line, Bokuto held her cup to her forehead, and the rest of the team pointed their elbows at next verse was hers.

"If I were the marrying kind - I thank the Lord I'm not, sir," they continued, "the kind of rugger I would be would be a rugby-"

"Prop, sir!" Bokuto had sprung up, eyes gleaming with mischief.

"Prop, sir?" everyone else roared. "Why's that, sir?"

"Cause I'd support a hooker," Bokuto warbled, winking back at Oikawa, and the rest of the team came in for the rest of the verse, "and you'd support a hooker, we'd all support a hooker together… We'd be alright in the middle of the night, supporting a hooker together!" Bokuto whooped loudly and sat back down as they moved into the next verse. "If I were the marrying kind - I thank the Lord I'm not, sir - the kind of rugger I would be would be a rugby-"

"Scrum half, sir!" bellowed Nishinoya, with surprisingly massive lungs for her tiny size.

"Scrum half, sir? Why's that, sir?"

Nishinoya smirked straight at Asahi, who went about the color of an eggplant. "Cause I'd go both ways!"

"And you'd go both ways, we'd all go both ways together…"

Several songs and a significant amount of alcohol later, Tendou Satori pointed out that that they had a very present lake about five minutes away from the door of this dorm and that the team, as a group generally known for being ruffians, were under some sort of obligation to go skinny dipping. This seemed like an excellent idea, as most of Tendou's ideas did once significant alcohol consumption had taken place, and the group of ruggers stumbled out into the September night in a happy drunken clump. But Bokuto wanted to grab another drink, as usual, and Oikawa and Kuroo stayed with her.

"We'll catch up," Oikawa assured their captain, who nodded.

"You know the way, right?"

"Yeah, of course," said Oikawa.

Kuroo waited until the group was gone, then asked Oikawa, "Do you know the way?"

"I'm not good at remembering directions," Oikawa replied, "but there can't be that many naked people in the lake on a Thursday night. Besides, you and Bokuto know where things are, right?"

Kuroo shook her head. "You know the recruits were only here for two weeks before the rest of the first-years arrived, right? We don't know our way around any better than you do."

Oikawa frowned. "What on earth did you do for those two weeks, then?"

"Uh, played rugby?"

"What did you do when you weren't playing rugby?"

"We got enough sleep and took care of our diets like athletes are supposed to do."

Oikawa snorted. "Kuroo, you're kind of a loser. But whatever, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Kuroo nodded. "Yeah, we'll figure it out."

Bokuto tossed back her last shot and bounded over to them. "Hey, I'm ready! Do we know the way?"

"Nope," Oikawa answered.

"Awesome! Let's go."

Five minutes later, they had definitely not figured it out. The effect of alcohol on their combined navigational capabilities didn't help.

"We maybe shouldn't have stayed for that last shot," muttered Oikawa. In response, Bokuto opened her mouth wide and burped prolongedly at her.

Kuroo wrinkled her nose. "Gross, bro."

"Hell yeah."

"I think we turn here?" Oikawa ventured, gesturing to an opening in the trees.

The narrow dirt path was leading in the direction of the lake, at least. But when it emerged from the trees overlooking the water, the area was deserted.

"Well, this isn't the rest of the team," Kuroo said.

"Cute, though," Bokuto observed The three girls looked around the tiny stone nook in the steep bank of the lake. Crooked steps were carved into the rock leading down into the water, and a warm breeze rustled through the shadowy trees around them and ruffled the dark surface. "We can still go swimming!"

"I'm down," Oikawa agreed.

Kuroo and Bokuto stripped down without fanfare, leaving their clothes draped across the bench cut into the stone alcove. Kuroo made for the steps with Bokuto close on her heels, stumbling just a little from the alcohol, then paused and looked back.

"Oikawa, you coming?"

"Uh, yeah," Oikawa said to the paving stones at her feet. "Just let me finish getting undressed."

"Kay, whenever you're ready." Kuroo slipped into the water with barely a ripple. Bokuto followed with a loud splash."Hey, hey, hey, Kuroo, aren't you going under?"

"...In a bit," Kuroo answered. Bokuto snorted.

"You're just afraid of getting your head wet - ow! Hey! Don't be lame!"

"You're lame," Kuroo retorted. "I'm going slowly, okay?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" There was a bigger splash, coupled with Kuroo's surprised "shit!". Her spluttering mixed with Bokuto's wicked laughter.

"I'm gonna murder you," Kuroo told her with utter sincerity, and Bokuto chuckled again.

"Bring it on, ho."

"Dipshit."

"Fartwad."

"Shitstain."

"Love you."

"Yeah, yeah, you too, whatever."

They fell silent for a moment, and then Bokuto's voice floated back to shore from a bit further out.

"Hey, Oikawa, are you coming in?"

"In a moment."

Oikawa took a quiet breath and looked up at her friends. Kuroo was standing several feet out, submerged up to her chest and facing away from shore. She stared up at the moon, caught motionless for just a moment.

Kuroo's arms looked as tanned as ever, but the lines of her back and shoulders gleamed surprisingly pale in the moonlight. She still stood the tallest of the three of them, but with her hair wet and smoothed down against her head, she looked… Different. More serious.

Beautiful, Oikawa's brain supplied, and she hushed it immediately. She turned her gaze to Bokuto, which wasn't much better. The moon threw Bokuto's features into sharp contrast - her hooked nose, her chiseled jawline, and, of course, the prominent muscles of her arms and back. Intense concentration shadowed her face as she stared down into the dark water.

"My boobs are floating," Bokuto announced gravely.

"Really?" Kuroo turned around, sending ripples through the water and oh that was certainly full-frontal. She waded towards Bokuto, both looking down at her chest in interest. "Whoa."

"Right?" Bokuto said, and prodded her left boob. It bobbed on the surface of the water. "I think it's because of lipids or something."

"Oikawa, why are her boobs floating?" Kuroo asked, without taking her eyes away from the boobs in question.

Oikawa blinked. "What? Why are you asking me?"

"You do science, don't you?"

"I'm an astrophysics major, not a jiggle physics major."

"They're both about heavenly bodies," Bokuto pointed out. She started snickering at Oikawa's look of utter disgust.

But the reminder that both her companions were human, and also kind of losers, dissolved Oikawa's nerves. She pulled off her boots and socks, left her shirt and shorts lying on the stone bench, and finally dropped her lacy underwear next to Bokuto's boxer briefs and Kuroo's black thong.

The bottom of the lake squelched under her feet, and she hesitated around waist-deep.

"Come on," Kuroo encouraged, beckoning to where she and Bokuto were standing. "The water's really nice."

"I'm coming, jeez."

Oikawa waded out further and further, holding out an arm in front of her and watching the moon gleam off her wet skin. Finally, she stepped into the space between the other two and reached out to touch the stars floating in the water. For a moment, even Bokuto was quiet, breathing in the night air and the moonlight.

"So this is borderline homoerotic," Oikawa said finally, just to break the silence.

Both her companions laughed aloud.

"Welcome to rugby," Kuroo replied.

Then Bokuto decided that Oikawa needed to get dunked too, and tackled her with the full force of a varsity rugger. Oikawa went down spluttering and came up vengeful - with a swipe of her foot, she kicked an unsuspecting Bokuto's knees out from underneath her and sent her down into the dark water. The tension quickly dissipated as Bokuto splashed around in excitement, Oikawa made fun of her mercilessly but joined in anyway, and Kuroo glided through the water at the bottom of the lake like a menacing torpedo to surprise one of the others by grasping their feet or tickling the backs of their knees.

The moon was starting to sink down towards the horizon by the time Oikawa's limbs began to feel heavy. She returned to the steps and sat down half-submerged on the second lowest, watching the lake and her friends. Before long, Kuroo quit fucking around in the water and joined her. Bokuto, tireless, continued to fuck around.

"This is nice," Oikawa said after a few moments. "Like, even though we lost the team."

Kuroo chuckled, and when she spoke, her voice was low enough to send a shiver down Oikawa's spine. "Yeah, I don't think any of us really mind, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well… It's not like we tried too hard to find the others when the three of us got lost," Kuroo murmured. Through the tangles of her hair around her face, her honey-brown eyes peered out at Oikawa, unreadable as always.

"I'm sobered up enough to head home," Oikawa whispered, and Kuroo nodded. She stood up and offered Oikawa a hand, and they climbed up the stairs to the nook.

"Hey, Bokuto, hurry your ass up," Kuroo called over her shoulder.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Bokuto waded back to shore, clambered up out of the water like an excited sea lion, and grabbed Kuroo's shirt to use as a makeshift towel. With some difficulty, Kuroo wrestled it away from her and used it to towel whip her bare ass.

"That's mine, you butthole."

"Well, duh, if I used mine it'd be too wet for me to wear."

"That doesn't mean-"

"You can use mine, Bokuto," Oikawa piped up.

"Oh, thanks!" While Bokuto rubbed herself down with the proffered tank top, Oikawa picked up Bokuto's own t-shirt from the bench and pulled it over her head. Bokuto didn't notice until she had finished drying off, and reached for it in order to get actually dressed.

"Hey!" she protested, and Oikawa snickered into her hand. But the plan backfired when Bokuto just put on Oikawa's shirt wet instead. It clung to her abs and back and left her powerful shoulders and whipcord arms exposed - which really shouldn't be so tantalizing, considering she'd been stark naked a few seconds ago, but Oikawa's eyes, drawn to her muscles like they were magnetized, didn't seem to care.

They stumbled back across campus linked at the arms, intoxication fading into delirious exhaustion. When they got back home, Bokuto and Kuroo went back to their own room.

Ahem. Bokuto and Kuroo went back to their own room.

"You know, I have a single," Oikawa said. "Not a triple."

"It's a triple tonight," Bokuto informed her, plucking Oikawa's towel from the rack on the back of the door and using it to dry off her hair. She tossed it to Kuroo, who followed suit. "Sleepovers are good for team bonding. Orders from your prop."

"I agree," Kuroo added.

Oikawa sighed, knowing better than to argue at this point. "I don't think I've ever even been in you guys' room."

"We're hiding a meth lab," Bokuto explained, and Kuroo nodded in agreement.

"And you didn't offer me any?"

"I'll bring you some, I promise," Bokuto assured her. "Where's your laundry hamper?"

"Uh, the closet, why? Oh, you're taking your clothes off. Okay."

"Technically, this is yours," Bokuto said, peeling off the tank top. "And I sleep naked. Always."

"Can confirm," Kuroo said.

"You guys should try it," Bokuto added, and wriggled out of her shorts. "It's not like we didn't just go skinny-dipping."

Kuroo looked at Oikawa. Oikawa looked at Kuroo.

"...That actually doesn't sound half bad," Oikawa admitted reluctantly. Two more outfits joined Bokuto's in the hamper.

"Floor's mine!" Bokuto announced. "And Kuroo's, presumably."

"I only have one blanket," Oikawa said. "Hope you like being cold, cause I'm not letting you in my bed naked."

"In that case, you are joining us on the floor," Bokuto said. "Cause my nipples could cut diamonds right now."

"Bokuto, that's gross."

"Oh, just get down here." With one hand, Bokuto reached up and pulled Oikawa's bedclothes down onto the floor, where she and Kuroo were already forming a nest.

"No!" Oikawa protested. "Ugh - no, don't look at me like that! Goddamnit-"

Kuroo's mouth twitched with amusement as she watched Bokuto's pout work its magic.

"...Ugh, fine." Oikawa laid down on her rug, fuming a little. Kuroo's ensuing cough sounded suspiciously like a snicker.

"Goodnight, Oikawa," she said.

"Piss off."

"Night, Kuroo!"

"Goodnight, bro. I love you."

"I love you, too. Even though the first time we met each other you talked to my biceps instead of my eyes for the entire practice."

"Okay, it was three weeks ago, can we move on-"

"No way, bro. I've got this dirt on you for the next four years."

Oikawa squeezed her eyes tighter shut, then sighed. "You're both nuts."

"Though this be madness, yet there be method in't," Kuroo declared to the ceiling.

Oikawa opened one eye. "...Is that Shakespeare?"

"You tell me." A smile twined through the words.

"You're such a geek," Oikawa mumbled. "I can't believe I thought you were hot at first."

"You thought I was hot?"

Shit - cover. "Don't worry, your personality is more than enough to cancel it out."

"That's a yes." Kuroo's grin flashed white through the darkness. "I bet you thought Bokuto was hot too, eh?"

Oikawa sniffed. "Of course I did. Bokuto is hot."

"I'm hot," Bokuto repeated, sounding pleased.

"Okay, whatever, shut up," Kuroo said. "I'm tired as fuck."

"Sour grapes," Oikawa said cheerfully, but she pulled her comforter up over herself and settled in to fall asleep.

The next morning, Oikawa woke up with her head resting comfortably on Bokuto's bare ass, and startled their entire floor into wakefulness with her shriek.

---

By the third Saturday of college, they were beginning to fall into a pattern. Kuroo's alarm clock woke up Oikawa through the wall, and the two of them met in the bathroom and made fun of each other's bedhead around their toothbrushes. While Oikawa stayed to put six different styling products into her hair, Kuroo went back to drag Bokuto out of bed - usually a noisy and arduous process. Then they headed to breakfast and ate by the window, where there were chairs tall enough that Bokuto could swing her legs back and forth in the air and Oikawa and Kuroo could kick at each other under the table.

This particular Saturday was different, though. SATURDAY IS RUGBY DAY, as Bokuto's favorite tank top explained in loud print, and this particular Saturday was their first match, an away game against a tech school about an hour away. Oikawa had been playing rugby for all of two weeks, and beyond her exhaustive Youtube research, she had little to no idea what she was doing in the noisy, roiling chaos of the field. But by halftime, she was holding her own, and when the whistle blew at the end of the game marking their win at 31 to 24, she was sweaty, dirty, and incredibly self-satisfied.

They stayed for pizza, beer, and singing with the opposing team afterwards, then crowded back into their cars for a drive home occupied by rehashing all the minutiae of the game.

"You did well, Oikawa," Washio said to the rearview mirror.

"I'll do better the next time," Oikawa assured her. She was squished in the middle of the backseat, between a hyped-up Bokuto and a lethargic Kuroo. In the passenger seat, Sarukui was fiddling with the radio, trying to catch staticy stations as their small caravan wound through the mountains.

"Sounds good," Washio replied, "but, really, you played fine for your first game. And sorry the #2 jersey was kind of big - they said we had a really buff hook last year."

"If I bench a lot, do you think my shoulders will broaden enough to fill it out?"

Washio lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Shit, man, I don't know. Bokuto?"

Bokuto's eyes gleamed. "I'll bench with you, Oikawa! Do you want to go to the weight room when we get home?"

"Sur-"

"No," Kuroo interrupted. "Take a bath or something. Rest your muscles, sheesh, you just played rugby for eighty minutes straight."

Bokuto frowned at her. "Hey, worry about yourself. You're the one who scored most of our points, you know."

"Yeah, and I wouldn't have been able to do it if you oversized beefcakes hadn't been tackling holes in their line for me."

Oikawa smiled to herself at the memories. Two out of every three times she'd attempted to tackle, she'd hit too high, and the opponent had gone down slowly if at all. But the last third of the time, she would hit to the sounds of a satisfying thunk and a surprised grunt from above her head - and watching from the ground on top of her victim as the 15 on the back of Kuroo's jersey shot by to slam the ball down past the try line was like a shot of adrenaline straight to her bloodstream. And there was nothing more satisfying than the scrum, when she'd gotten to feel the other hooker's confusion and fury at very, very close range as Oikawa swiped the ball out from underneath her feet and sent it back to her own eight-man.

That night, she took stock of her body in the shower, as usual. Bruises splotched her outer thighs blue and purple, and her left eye was blacked where one of the opposing forwards had elbowed her in the middle of a ruck. Someone's cleat had scraped a cut into her cheek at one point, and it stung viciously when she scrubbed down her face.

"Holy shit, what happened to you?" the girl next to her asked in her 8:30 class the next morning. Oikawa's neck and back were stiffer than the day after her most painful high school volleyball practices, but wicked pride surged up in her heart as she answered:

"We had our first rugby game yesterday."

---

By the fourth Saturday of college, cliques were solidifying, classes were falling into a rhythm, Oikawa's black eye was a yellow and purple eye, and she, Kuroo, and Bokuto had apparently become a recognizable fixture at the tall tables by the window during breakfast. Apparently because, one morning, a familiar face stopped by with an "Ah, I knew you guys would be here" - Konoha, accompanied by a girl Oikawa didn't recognize who had sleek copper-red hair and a permanent smirk.

The new girl greeted Kuroo by stealing a tater tot to add to her own already heaping plate, Bokuto by punching her on the shoulder, and Oikawa by half-raising her eyebrow. "Oh, hey, who's this?"

"Oikawa Tooru," Oikawa said. "I play rugby with these two losers."

"Yukie Shirofuku," the girl replied. She didn't seem to mind that her worn sweatshirt, which bore the emblem of Konoha's high school, hung low enough around her neck to show an impressive amount of hickeys. From the way she was leaning back a little against Konoha's shoulder, the source was clear.

"Yukie, meet the terrible threesome," Konoha said, gesturing to their table. Yukie caught Bokuto by the arm before she could slink away and immediately started in about some money Bokuto owed her.

"Konoha, that word has sexual connotations," Oikawa chirped.

Konoha lifted an eyebrow at her. "Yes, it does. I'll see you around. Come on, you useless lesbian." She left with Yukie wrapped in a headlock-turning-hug before Oikawa could process that, leaving her blinking in confusion.

"Do people think we're sleeping together?" she asked Kuroo. If so, it was news to her.

"Oh, probably." Kuroo shrugged. "We're all on rugby, you know?"

"Is everyone on the rugby team sleeping together?!"

"Naw," Bokuto said, "but we're mostly all gay, and they just assume that gay people jump each other constantly. And the three of us are together a lot."

"Oh." Oikawa went back to her Lucky Charms, munching a little more thoughtfully than before.

She thought about it for the rest of the morning - wondered if people thought they were sleeping together, wondered if she cared, wondered if Bokuto and Kuroo still wanted to sleep with her, wondered why she cared, and ultimately decided she was okay with it.

There were worse things she could be known for than sleeping with two of the most attractive people she'd ever met.

Not that she would admit that under pain of death, torture, or a merciless noogie from Iwaizumi.

---

By the ninth week of college, November was looming with crisp mornings and stray snowflakes whirling through the air as the rugby team moved through drills with focused determination. It was a brisk, overcast Saturday the week before Halloween when a painfully close loss to their age-old rivals on the other side of the river knocked their team out of the preliminaries for nationals.

Bokuto shut herself in her room for three days afterwards. On the afternoon of the third day, Kuroo huffed into Oikawa's room without knocking and draped herself down on her bed. At her desk, Oikawa was taking her frustration out on her calculus homework, but her pencil stilled when Kuroo let out a long, frustrated sigh.

"She's still sulking, huh?"

"She's an over-muscled idiot," Kuroo grumbled, which was a yes. "It's just a game."

"Oh, come off it," Oikawa said. "You're upset about it too."

Kuroo frowned at her. "What makes you think that?"

"You aren't really mad at her right now, and yet you're irritable about something anyways. What else would it be?"

That sent Kuroo floundering for a half a beat. "...Okay, yeah, but at least I'm functioning. She hasn't gone to class or anything." Oikawa was silent for a moment, and Kuroo side-eyed her. "Come on, help me out here."

"I'm thinking," she retorted. "Do you have any idea what helps her out of it?

"Just one thing." Kuroo crossed her arms above her head on Oikawa's pillow. "You know she and Konoha went to high school together, yeah?"

"Mmhmm."

"Konoha told me that Bokuto gets like this sometimes - they used to call it her emo mode. And the fly half on their high school team, this person named Akaashi - they could handle her in any mood. Like, they could work miracles with her." Kuroo's tone was souring rapidly. "I haven't gotten the hang of it yet."

"It's not your job," Oikawa reminded her. "Is Akaashi's college in the area?"

Kuroo shook her head. "They're a year younger than us, so they're still in high school."

"Damn."

"But Konoha said the main way they did it was, like, orchestrating victories for her. Like, getting the ball to her when they knew she'd be able to score, and then a lot of flattery when she did score. It's not like Bokuto can't do things on her own, you know? She just doesn't think she can a lot of the time."

Oikawa frowned. "Well, we don't have any more games until spring. There aren't any more victories to be had."

"I know," Kuroo snapped, then deflated a little. "Sorry, I'm just frustrated."

Oikawa shook her head. "No, I understand. But it's not like we're always going to win. She can't just go into a slump whenever she feels like she's failed."

Kuroo barked out a short laugh. "Hasn't stopped her so far."

"Yeah, cause she's been spoiled rotten." Oikawa put her pencil down. "I'll go talk to her."

"Good luck," Kuroo called after her, obviously sarcastic, then paused and added a more sincere, "Seriously. Good luck."

When Oikawa pushed open the door, a tuft of silver hair sticking out of a blanket cocoon on one of the beds was the only sign of Bokuto.

"Leave me alone, Kuroo," croaked the cocoon, in the most miserable voice Oikawa had ever heard.

"It's me," Oikawa told Bokuto. She pulled the blankets off her friend's body without ceremony. Bokuto yelped at the sudden exposure and curled up tighter. "Jeez, put some clothes on."

"Kuroo doesn't care if I'm naked."

Oikawa smiled down at her. "Maybe I'm not as nice as Kuroo. Up and at em, we're going for a walk."

Bokuto opened her mouth to protest, but quailed under the look Oikawa gave her. In silence, she accepted the worn sneakers Oikawa shoved at her, and then dug out a pair of dirty jeans and an old t-shirt. Oikawa picked up Bokuto's jacket from the hook and shrugged it on, knowing that Bokuto, who was a human furnace, wouldn't need it herself. They left the dorm, found the now-familiar footpath towards the lake, and walked in silence until the trail reached the water and began following the shore.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Oikawa asked her. That was all the encouragement Bokuto needed.

"I went down in a tackle eight times in the first half, and they won our second scrum and it's my fault because the props are supposed to push the hardest, and…"

She talked halfway around the lake, until they reached a small bench looking out over the gray water. And Oikawa listened, keeping her face carefully neutral, even as Bokuto's voice began to waver and crack with tears.

"...A-and I played as hard as I could and we still lost, and we won't be able to go to the championships and it's all cause of me, and I should just…"

Her voice trailed off. Oikawa waited, and then asked, "Are you done?"

Bokuto's shoulders hunched. "Basically, we lost cause I suck."

"Well." Oikawa leaned back against the bench, staring out over the lake. November wind whipped the water into whitecaps, rattled the bare branches of the trees, drove the clouds across the sky above. "That's bullshit."

"But-"

Oikawa raised a finger to stop her renewed tirade. "No. Listen. We lost because the other team was better than us."

"But I could've-"

"Listen. You know you're talented, right?"

"Yeah." Bokuto perked up a little, then shrank back into herself again. "But it wasn't enough."

"Exactly." Oikawa shoved her hands into her pockets. "Do you think you can win everything with that talent? Every single game?"

Bokuto turned her distressed gaze on Oikawa. "Clearly I can't!"

"So what are you going to do about it?" Oikawa demanded. "Mope in your room forever?" Bokuto didn't respond to that, and she went on. "You played at the maximum of your ability, didn't you?"

"Of course I did!"

"And do you really think that you have no control over what the maximum of your ability is? Do you really think that talent is the only way anyone wins anything?"

"But - but if I'd been more talented-"

Oikawa shook her head. "You can't change your natural capabilities. That's out of your control. But you can always work harder." She raised her voice above a gust of wind that thrummed down the lake and pierced her jacket. "And so you get back up, you train harder tonight and you fight harder tomorrow, and when you step onto the pitch again this spring you'll know that we can win it."

And then two tentative hands wrapped around Oikawa's arm, and Bokuto buried her face `in the shoulder of Oikawa's jacket. Her entire body was trembling, and her shoulders shuddered with silent, uneven sobs. Oikawa lifted her arm and wrapped it around Bokuto's shoulders, and gradually, the shaking slowed and stopped.

For a few minutes, they stayed there in silence. Oikawa's fingers combed slow, even strokes through tangled silver hair. And then Bokuto started up again-

"But, Oikawa, if I'd been able to take out that really big prop they had before they could score that last try-"

"Bokuto," Oikawa interrupted. She grasped Bokuto's chin and wrenched it towards her, pressing their foreheads tight together. Hard brown eyes met watery golden ones. "What are you going to do about it?"

Bokuto stared at her for a moment. Then, in a very small voice, she asked, "Do you want to go practice tackles in the gym after dinner today?"

Oikawa's lips curved up into a satisfied smile.

"Now you're getting it." She stood up off the bench, cracked her back, and offered a hand to her friend. "C'mon, let's go home."

Bokuto accepted the hand and hopped to her feet, with a little of the energy Oikawa was used to. "Can we go practice now?"

"No, you need a shower."

"I do not!"

"You definitely do."

The rest of the walk along the lake was significantly lighter, as the wind had calmed to a mere breeze that ruffled over the lake and the two girls' hair. As they swiped back into their dorm, Bokuto said, "Oikawa."

"Mmhmm?"

"Thanks."

"Anytime." Oikawa patted her shoulder and followed her through the door. "It'll be okay."

"No." Bokuto shook her head and grinned at Oikawa. "It'll be better."

"That's what I like to hear." Oikawa smirked back at her. Then she remembered something else. "Besides, it's not we're even done with the fall season yet."

Bokuto cocked her head. "What?"

"Banquet's coming up," Oikawa reminded her, and that lit a spark of excitement in Bokuto's eyes.

"You're right!"

---

No rugby season was truly over until the enduring tradition of Banquet - a weekend in the cabin in the mountains, in which the team built a fire in the fireplace, held a series of ceremonies with varying degrees of seriousness, and drank until they dropped. In the case of Bokuto, Oikawa, and Kuroo, they dropped in the same corner of the musty old sofa. When Oikawa woke up to the lazy mountain sunlight streaming through the window late the next morning, Kuroo was sprawled out spread-eagle on her back, stark naked. Bokuto was curled up next to her, wearing Oikawa's old high school letterman jacket and a pair of briefs with RUCK ME HARDER printed across the back, and Oikawa, nude save her own underwear, was draped across Kuroo's lap with her head pillowed on Bokuto's ass.

"We have to stop meeting like this," she said to the ass in question.

The rest of the team was passed out scattered around the room, mostly in similar states of undress. Sarukui had lost her cred as "the straight one" somewhere in the middle of body shots. The mood was subdued but satisfied as they rose one by one, cleaned up the dishes from dinner and the empty bottles from after, and piled into cars to occupy the nearest Dunkin Donuts.

Bokuto attempted to down a Coolatta, ended up with a brainfreeze on top of her hangover, and curled up in the backseat of Washio's car mewling quietly in pain for the first fifteen minutes of the long drive home. Next to her, Oikawa and Kuroo started an argument about birds mostly just for the sake of arguing. But the combination of the motion of the car, Washio's quiet music, exhaustion setting in from their late night, and Bokuto's pain-induced fetal position turning into a nap cuddled warm against Oikawa's side were irresistible. Oikawa's eyelids gradually drooped, and Kuroo's rebuttals turned from eloquent discourse about hollow bones and secondary feathers into childish contentions of "kiwis look like coconuts with legs". Finally, Kuroo slumped against Oikawa's side, and Oikawa settled down half-on top of Bokuto and draped her other arm over Kuroo's shoulder.

"We'll finish this later," Oikawa mumbled with the last dregs of her consciousness.

"Later," Kuroo agreed, and nestled in closer as they both drifted off.

---

"Hey, Oikawa - we're home. Oikawa?"

Oikawa awoke to Washio's hand jostling her knee. "Mmhmm?" she murmured, sitting up and shaking off sleep. Fuzzily, she registered that the sun was sitting at an odd angle in the sky - it was early afternoon.

"We're back. Can you wake up those two troublemakers?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." Oikawa rubbed her hand across her eyes.

Then she looked down at her lapful of teammates, and she froze.

Kuroo's face was always more open and honest in her sleep, and her usual smirk had smoothed into a small, contented smile. For once, Bokuto wasn't unconsciously fidgeting, and one hand had crept up to rest on Oikawa's leg. She was breathing slow and even as she nuzzled into the crook of Oikawa's hip, and Oikawa's heart tripped, stuttered, tentatively swelled.

She had always known that the two of them were attractive. But she'd gotten used to the teasing quirk of Kuroo's mouth and the constant noise of Bokuto's movement.

She didn't think she'd ever get used to them like this.

Oikawa lifted her arm off Kuroo's shoulders and wound her fingers through her two friends' hair, watching silver and black twist around her fingers for a moment. Then, forcing herself to collect her roaming thoughts, she jiggled her legs a few times. Kuroo's eyelids fluttered, while Bokuto's squeezed tighter shut.

"Up and at em," she told the pair. "We're home." Bokuto groaned, and Oikawa flicked her on the nose. "Get up, I'm not gonna carry you to bed."

"Why not?" Bokuto whined - complaining before she was even fully awake. Classic.

"Cause you're twice my size. C'mon, that has to be bad for your neck or something."

"Fine, fine." Bokuto reached out for the oh-shit handle and hauled herself up, grumbling under her breath.

Meanwhile, Kuroo had fumbled around underneath herself and unclicked the seatbelt so she could turn onto her back and look up at Oikawa. "Hey, what are you smiling about?"

Oikawa blinked. "What? I'm not smiling."

"You are," Bokuto said. Oikawa glanced up at the rearview mirror. Shit, she was. "I bet it's cause I'm so cute."

"Absolutely," Oikawa told her. Bokuto preened.

They clambered out of Washio's car, grabbed their bags from the trunk, and thanked her for the ride. She raised a hand in farewell and then rolled off towards her own dorm.

"Bokuto," Oikawa said, and held out her overnight bag.

"Sure thing!" Bokuto slung it over her shoulder, along with her own backpack. She accepted Kuroo's bag too, and they trudged up the hill towards their dorm as the sun began to lower in the sky. Bokuto grabbed one hand with the other and and raised her arms high over her head, slightly impaired by the weight of the bags on her shoulders. Oikawa and Kuroo, on either of her sides, reached up in unison and yanked her arms back down.

"You stink to high heaven," Kuroo told her, and Oikawa nodded in agreement.

"Or low hell. Like you haven't showered all season."

"You guys are so mean to me!" Bokuto pouted for a moment, then promptly forgot about it, linking her hands with theirs instead. The three bags bumped between their legs. "Man, I'm ready to sleep til I die."

Oikawa furrowed her brow. "But how long would you live? If you're asleep, you can't eat or drink, can you?"

"Kuroo will give me an IV," Bokuto assured her, swinging their joined hands back and forth. "I'll just sleep out the rest of my natural life."

"Okay, but you're relying on an English major to feed you intravenously."

"She's first-aid certified! She's the only reason we're allowed to carry a med kit with us, you know."

Oikawa rolled her eyes loudly. "That doesn't mean she knows how to work needles, Bokuto."

"Don't you trust her?!"

"More importantly, you can't play rugby if you're asleep."

Bokuto barked a laugh. "Ha, did you see the opposition's wings in the first round of prelims? They might as well have been."

"You're both idiots," Kuroo announced. She let go of Bokuto's hand to swipe them in, and when the three of them split off into their respective rooms with waves and "see you tomorrow"s, Oikawa was alone with her thoughts at last. She put down her bag, plugged in her phone, laid down on her bed on top of her covers, and stared at the ceiling.

She couldn't pretend she hadn't noticed the twisting ache in her chest when she looked down at Kuroo and Bokuto. And now that she'd noticed that, a thousand more tiny things were flooding into her head. The warmth that swelled up in her heart whenever Bokuto grabbed her hand. The way Kuroo's lazy-tomcat smile had slowly shifted from infuriating to endearing. How her room felt oddly quiet when there wasn't anyone making too much noise on her ugly teal loveseat or cracking awful jokes from her bed. How much more they all touched each other than most friends did - Kuroo's fingers curling around the hem of Oikawa's jacket, and Bokuto slinging an arm over her shoulders, and Kuroo ignoring three open chairs to sit in Bokuto's lap instead, and Oikawa resting her chin on Bokuto's shoulder or playing with Kuroo's fingers, and-

And all of them curling around each other in the backseat of a car on a Saturday afternoon, when Oikawa couldn't pretend she didn't notice how irresistibly drawn to each other they all were. How well the three of them fit together.

She'd hadn't taken up their offer at the beginning of the semester. But things were different now - Kuroo and Bokuto were her two closest friends, besides Iwaizumi, Matsukawa and Hanamaki. And she might not trust Bokuto to be on time to anything or Kuroo to feed someone intravenously, but she trusted them with things like being kind to her, things like treating her with respect - and,maybe, things like sex?

Those things, she trusted them with.

And fuck, if the persistent dreams she'd been having lately were anywhere near accurate, it would be really, really nice to feel either or both of their hands between her legs.

But it would probably be best to get a second opinion. And there was really only one place to ask for it.

1:02 P.M.

perfectkawa ✌: guys
perfectkawa ✌: i have a problem
matsukaweed: i have solutions and/or mockery
perfectkawa ✌: you know my next-door neighbors/teammates
perfectkawa ✌: the ones who asked me to have sex with them at the beginning of the year
perfectkawa ✌: WHICH WAS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS
matsukaweed: oh yeah i remember
matsukaweed: are they hot
perfectkawa ✌: jfdjafjkdlsakj
matsukaweed: that's a yes B-]
perfectkawa ✌: yeah…
hanamemeki: eyyy
matsukaweed: get a slice of that
hanamemeki: you gonna go for it? :^)
perfectkawa ✌: I JUST
perfectkawa ✌: it would be RIDICULOUS
perfectkawa ✌: like
perfectkawa ✌: one is super cute and all but i swear to god the other lives to annoy me
perfectkawa ✌: WE ARE FRIENDS
perfectkawa ✌: but she pisses me off
perfectkawa ✌: SO
perfectkawa ✌: much
Iwaizumi Hajime: Oh?
Iwaizumi Hajime: Hang on a second - I think I smell something.
Iwaizumi Hajime: What could it possibly be?
perfectkawa ✌: DONT
Iwaizumi Hajime: Is it…
Iwaizumi Hajime: Karma?
matsukaweed: hhahaha
perfectkawa ✌: ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚
hanamemeki: hahahahahhahahahahahahahhhhh
Iwaizumi Hajime: So what was your problem, then?
perfectkawa ✌: oh yeah i meant to ask
perfectkawa ✌: should I go for it
hanamemeki: yes
matsukaweed: absolutely
perfectkawa ✌: IM GONNA GO FOR IT
hanamemeki: HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH
matsukaweed: HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH

[cut for length]

1:48 P.M.

perfectkawa ✌: iwa-chan?
Iwaizumi Hajime: What?
perfectkawa ✌: well…?
Iwaizumi Hajime: ?
perfectkawa ✌: …

1:57 P.M.

perfectkawa ✌: …..
Iwaizumi Hajime: Ugh. Fine, go for it.

perfectkawa ✌: （‐＾▽＾‐）

She didn't go for it right away. She waited until evening, if for no other reason than out of some vague notion that sex was supposed to happen at night. In the meantime, she took a shower, shaved her legs, shaved her armpits, thought about shaving her pubes, chickened out as soon as the razor got within six inches of her crotch, dried off, put on her cutest underwear and bra, rubbed cocoa butter onto her legs, spent about fifteen minutes looking up lesbian sex tips in Google Chrome's incognito mode, clipped and filed her nails, and finally got dressed the rest of the way.

And then she left her room and knocked on the next door over, where a picture of a cat decorated the index card pinned to the bulletin board. It had two columns of checkboxes, one titled with another doodle of a cat and one with a messy owl, and rows labeled "at home!", "do not disturb ;)", "in the dorm B)", "around campus", and "off campus". Both Kuroo's and Bokuto's pushpins were in the "at home!" boxes.

Cute, Oikawa thought to herself. And then she shook herself, took a deep breath, and knocked twice.

"Coming!" a voice floated out, and her heart kicked into high gear - was she actually doing this? Then the door opened, and there was Kuroo Tetsurou in all her six-foot-one glory. "Oh, hey, what's up? How's your hangover doing?"

"Hey." Oikawa shifted from one foot to another. "I feel better now. And, um." Fuck, she hadn't really thought this part out. "I was thinking. Your offer from way back at the beginning of the year, about, um, relaxing. Does that still, um…"

"Oh, you changed your mind?" Kuroo looked genuinely pleased, and Oikawa's heart fluttered a little. "I knew you'd come around. Come on in. Bo, Oikawa's here!"

Oikawa stepped into the room, looking around in curiosity - in their entire semester of friendship, she had still barely ever actually been inside. It was a little cluttered, but the shaggy rug, fairy lights, and bisexual pride flag on the wall gave it a comforting, homey atmosphere. Oikawa's own room boasted little decor beyond a bedraggled plant on the windowsill. She stepped out of her flip-flops and curled her toes into the rug.

Kuroo went over towards the bed with neatly-made red sheets and knelt down, fiddling around for something beneath it. Bokuto was sprawled out on her back on the crumpled gray covers of the other bed, with her laptop on her stomach and her legs propped up against the wall. Above her hung a huge poster with a picture of a rugby ball and a caption reading, "80 MINUTES. 15 POSITIONS. NO PROTECTION. JOIN RUGBY". At Kuroo's words, she wriggled around to face the doorway.

"Hey, Oikawa!"

"She's here for some special relaxation," Kuroo said over her shoulder, and Bokuto's eyes lit up.

"Ohhh! Can I get in on this?"

"Might as well," Oikawa mumbled, eyeing Bokuto's triceps - she'd cut the sleeves off her t-shirt, leaving her biceps to distract every stray passerby

"Hell yeah!" Bokuto pushed her laptop off to the side and flipped herself upright. She bounded across the room to Kuroo's bed in two quick strides and jumped up onto it, sitting cross-legged and leaning back against the wall. "Man, I'm excited! You haven't done this before, right, Oikawa?"

Oikawa winced at the bluntness, but there was no point denying the truth. "I figured I might as well start now."

"Excellent choice." Kuroo's head was still buried underneath the bed, but Oikawa could hear her muffled voice: "There's some kinds of company you can't get anywhere else."

Oikawa rolled her eyes and tried desperately not to blush - it wasn't like Bokuto and Kuroo weren't two of her closest friends, but viewing them in this light was strange and new and made her thoroughly nervous. "You know that's what I'm here for."

"That's what I like to hear," Kuroo responded, and then finally stood up with something cupped in her hands. "Alright, come on over when you're ready."

Oikawa took one step across the rug, then another, then paused. Her heart was going a million miles an hour.

It wasn't like they hadn't all seen each other naked! At very close range! On multiple occasions! They played rugby, after all. But…

"Hey, don't be shy," Bokuto put in, looking earnestly concerned. "I promise, there's nothing to be afraid of. We can show you first if you want."

"I - okay." Show me what? Are they going to take their clothes off? Are they going to take my clothes off? Are they going to - oh, they're going to-

Slowly but steadily, Kuroo was extending her hands out towards Oikawa, showing her something - fluffy?

Oh my god.

This is what she was talking ab-

"She just woke up, so she's sleepy," Kuroo said, "but she'll warm up to you pretty quickly-"

"A cat?" Oikawa squeaked. Sure enough, Kuroo was holding a small bundle of cream-colored fluff, soft little paws, and round green eyes.

"Sit down," Bokuto urged her, patting the covers of her bed. Oikawa was too dazed to disobey, and dropped down onto the sheets. Kuroo placed the cat down next to her, and it took a few unsteady steps, blinking up at Oikawa.

"Like I said," Kuroo continued, sitting down next to her, "she's really friendly, and I think hearing a cat purr is supposed to be good for your endorphins or something, I don't know, I'm an English major, but it always helps me-"

Oikawa giggled, too high - coming down from the adrenaline was leaving her a little lightheaded. Kuroo tilted her head, frowning, and a tangle of her unruly hair fell down across her face. "Look, I don't know anything about biology, okay-"

"No, it's just-" Oikawa floundered for cover, and found it in the form of the cat's disproportionately short legs. "She looks like a dachsund."

"Gesundheit," said Bokuto, and Oikawa wasn't too flustered to give her an unimpressed look.

"She's a munchkin cat," Kuroo explained. "Special breed. I think it makes her look cute."

Oikawa let out a shaky breath. Okay. A cat. She could roll with this.

"What's her name?" Oikawa asked, watching the cat stretch her paws out in front of her and yawn hugely.

"Kenma," Kuroo answered, voice soft. She extended her hand towards the cat and fluttered her fingers, and Kenma arched her head to nuzzle against Kuroo's palm, purring throatily. "I named her after my best friend from back home. They were embarrassed, but I like to think of them."

"That's kind of lame," Oikawa informed her.

"Cute," Kuroo corrected, scritching down Kenma's spine.

"Super cute," Bokuto added.

"Super lame."

"You're lame."

She'd never admit it aloud, but the dumb cat was actually pretty cute.

Kenma, too.

They abruptly fell silent as Kenma placed first one tiny paw on Oikawa's leg, then another. Oikawa held her breath, and, with delicate steps, the cat picked her way into her lap and settled down in a warm, furry circle. Soft fur tickled Oikawa's bare skin, and the rise and fall of the cat's side was regular and soothing. Kenma rested her chin on her paws - then her nostrils flared, and her head perked up. She placed one paw on Oikawa's thigh and started licking it with a rough, determined pink tongue. Oikawa blinked a little, then Bokuto and Kuroo broke into laughter, and she did too.

The damn cocoa butter. Of course.

"So you were talking about your cat," she breathed, "when you said relaxation."

"Mmm." Kuroo glanced up at her. "She's registered with the school as a therapy animal. So I call her my relaxation therapy."

"That makes sense," Oikawa murmured, and carefully stroked Kenma's back.

"Yeah." Kuroo watched the small cat with fondness in her eyes. "Why, what were you expecting?"

"Oh, it's not important," Oikawa said. "How long have you had her?"

"Wait, hold up." Bokuto squinted at her. "What did you think we meant?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Now I'm curious," Kuroo said. She reached out and started petting Kenma's head, but her gaze was fixed on Oikawa's face.

"I said it was nothing." Oikawa knew the moment the words came out of her mouth that she sounded too defensive. Four eyes examined her closely.

"You're blushing," Bokuto announced, pointing at her ears, and Oikawa knew she was fucked.

"Why do you have to be perceptive now," she groaned. The cat in her lap shifted with agitation, but kept licking her leg.

"Oh, she is blushing." Kuroo sounded amused, but her eyes were dangerously keen. "Why's that, Oikawa?"

"Nothing," Oikawa insisted helplessly, then cut herself off with a strangled noise as Kuroo leaned forward towards her until their noses were almost touching. She stared into Oikawa's eyes and… Sniffed. Deeply.

"Oikawa… Do you have cocoa butter on your legs?"

Oikawa buried her face in her hands. She hated lotion, and Kuroo knew it. There was only one reason she would ever put cocoa butter on her legs.

"That's for sex!" Bokuto exclaimed - and it was all over.

"I just-" Oikawa hunched her shoulders and wondered if it was possible to will yourself to instant death. "I - you were misleading, okay-"

"You thought…" Kuroo said slowly, "we were asking you to have a threeway?"

Oikawa waited silently for the mockery.

But none came forth. She opened her fingers a little and peeked through them - Bokuto was staring at Kuroo like a labrador retriever pleading for food from the table. Some strange, silent conversation in best-friend language passed between their eyes, and Oikawa frowned at both of them, momentarily more offended than embarrassed.

"Hey. I'm still here."

"Now or never, bro," Bokuto said to Kuroo. Oikawa was rapidly growing more irritated. It must've shown, because Kuroo sighed, acquiescing.

"Alright," she said.

"If you two are making fun of me-" Oikawa began, but Kuroo and Bokuto were both shaking their heads before she could finish her sentence.

"No, no," Bokuto said, "it's something we've been talking about-"

Oikawa's eyes narrowed. "You've been talking about me?"

"Um, about us, really." Kuroo gestured awkwardly to herself and Bokuto. "Like, all of us, together. As in, like, together-together, like-"

"We were going to ask you if you wanted to date us." Bokuto interrupted. "Both of us."

For some reason, the only response that came to Oikawa's mind was, "So you do want to have a threeway."

"Well, we can have sex and stuff later, if you want." Kuroo was rubbing the back of her neck, like she always did when she was nervous. "But we're talking about a relationship."

"Proper romancing," Bokuto added. "With candles and shit. Candles everywhere."

"Candles everywhere," Oikawa repeated. With some detached part of her consciousness, she scratched Kenma's head.

This was all a little bit much.

"Bokuto, you can't just put candles everywhere," Kuroo chided her. "It's a fire hazard, for one thing, and there's other parts, like-"

"Ahem, I think you should leave this to the expert on romancing."

Kuroo flicked her nose. "You don't know anything about romancing."

Bokuto frowned at her. "I know about the candles."

"I just told you, there's more than candles-"

"Please slow down," Oikawa interrupted, and maybe her tone was a little desperate, but her brain was going a million miles an hour.

Dating...both of them?

Is that even ALLOWED?

"Right." Kuroo looked a little chagrined. "Um, we know polyamory might be new, and if you need some time to think about it-"

"I don't," Oikawa interrupted. She waited with a straight face for a few seconds, just to watch Kuroo squirm, then broke into a smile. "I'm in."

As if they didn't already fit together like three sardines in a sarcastic gay tin already.

"Yes!" Bokuto cheered. She hopped to her feet to pump her fist into the air, and the bedsprings creaked alarmingly underneath her. "So now I have two girlfriends!"

"I have two losers," Oikawa agreed, smiling up at her.

"And I have two lovers," Kuroo finished.

"Nooooo, don't say that," Oikawa groaned. "That's such an uncomfortable word."

"Lovers," Kuroo repeated, slow and deliberate.

"Lovers," Bokuto chimed in.

"Moist," Oikawa retorted, and the pair winced in unison. "Moist and spongy."

Bokuto choked a little, and dropped back down to sit cross-legged in front of Oikawa. She leaned forward, staring straight into her eyes with an imploring expression. "Oikawa, please."

Bokuto's pout was irresistible as ever - Oikawa gave in almost immediately. "Okay, okay. But I have one more for Kuroo."

"Mercy," said Kuroo, no hope in her voice whatsoever. Oikawa leaned over.

"Moist, spongy, and damp," she whispered, right against Kuroo's ear. Kuroo made a noise of pain.

"Okay, peace, peace. We won't say the word again… if I can do this." Kuroo leaned forward, slid her arms around Oikawa's waist, and pulled her back against her own body, careful not to disturb Kenma. Oikawa allowed this, since Kuroo was comfortable and warm and softly kissing the side of her neck in a way that sent goosebumps down her skin.

"You're so thirsty," she said anyway.

"You came here for a threeway," Kuroo pointed out against her jawline, and Oikawa shut her mouth.

"Kuroo's always thirsty," Bokuto assured her. She scooted forward a little until her knees pressed against Oikawa's. "But, hey, that's not a problem now, is it?"

"Not at all," Oikawa answered. She felt Kuroo's smile against her neck, followed by a pleased little sigh. "What?"

"Oh, nothing." She dropped a brief kiss on Oikawa's collarbone. "Just thinking we should've done this sooner."

"Why didn't you?" Oikawa asked, and Kuroo shifted a little underneath her.

"We were both worried," she admitted. "That you wouldn't be interested, I mean. And then that you wouldn't want to be friends anymore, and honestly? I can't imagine dealing with this one-" she jerked her head towards Bokuto- "alone."

"Romantic," Oikawa deadpanned, clearly sarcastic, and Bokuto looked triumphant.

"See, Kuroo, you're bad at romance too!"

Kuroo rolled her eyes. "Oh, come off it, you were just as nervous as I was."

"You were worried too?" Oikawa asked, glancing at Bokuto.

"Um…" Bokuto ducked her head. "Yeah. Most people only know about relationships with two people. We didn't want to make it weird by making it three. And I wanted to stay friends with you, too."

"Oh." Oikawa reached out and patted her head. "Well, three is fine."

Bokuto peeked up through her hair. "It's not weird?" Her voice wavered a little.

"You're super weird," Oikawa informed her. "Both of you. But the polyamory part, that part is fine."

"That's awesome!" Bokuto brightened back up immediately. "Cause I've been thinking about it a lot, and three is gonna be way better than two - like, bro, triple dates."

Oikawa frowned. "That could get complicated, though. Like… If we go out to restaurants, who has to sit alone on one side of the table and who has to double up?"

"You can sit on my lap," Bokuto offered.

"I'll sit on your lap," Oikawa agreed instantly.

Kuroo's lips twisted downwards. "I want to sit on your lap too, though."

"I have room enough for both of you!" Bokuto assured her. "We can all just sit on one side of the table."

"It's not like any of us have the money to go on fancy dates anyway," Oikawa pointed out. "We just have to be cute at Wendy's."

"We are gonna be so cute at Wendy's," Kuroo said. Then she buried a grin in the back of Oikawa's shirt.

Oikawa glanced down at her, half-amused, half-questioning. "You okay?"

"I'm a little bit happy, okay," came Kuroo's muffled voice.

"You're such a dork," Bokuto said, and Oikawa nodded in agreement.

Kuroo lifted her head, revealing an even bigger smile. "Nope, you can't drag me down right now. Even with your weird three-person date calculations."

Bokuto flapped her hand dismissively. "I'm sure it'll work out. Three is a magic number, you know."

"How do you figure that?" Oikawa asked.

"Well, I've been thinking about it a lot, and there's so many things that come in threes-"

"I'm going to stop you right there," interrupted Kuroo, "cause this already sounds like it's going to be stupid."

"No, I mean it!" Bokuto looked ridiculously pleased with herself. "The past and the present and the future. Faith and hope and charity. The heart and the brain and the body."

"She's right - it's like Margaret Cho said," Oikawa added. "There's the cute one," she gestured to Bokuto, "the smart one," she pointed at herself, "and the ho."

"Okay, that's probably true," Kuroo allowed.

"Hell yeah!" Bokuto exclaimed. "And brains, brawn, and beauty!"

"Ah, but which is which there?"

"Well, Bokuto is clearly the brawn," Oikawa mused. "I'm the beauty, and the brains… And as for you, well, we'll find something," she told Kuroo, patting somewhere in the vague vicinity of her arm.

Bokuto started laughing, and Kuroo craned her neck to give Oikawa a wounded look. "You're so mean to me."

"Aren't you used to it by now?"

Kuroo pinched Oikawa's hipbone in retaliation. "We just started dating, didn't we? Isn't there supposed to be a honeymoon phase or something?"

"You knew what you were getting into." Oikawa smiled her most disarming smile at her girlfriend, who did not look disarmed in the slightest.

"You can't even stop making fun of me for a few hours?"

Oikawa blinked, wide and innocent. "But you make it so easy?"

Bokuto snickered and held out her hand for a low five. Oikawa slapped it - and then didn't let go, catching Bokuto's fingers with her own and winding them together. Bokuto blinked down at her in surprise, then raised their joined hands to her lips. She pressed kisses to each of Oikawa's knuckles, soft and gentle.

"That's cute," Kuroo said, "but you two have to at least stop ganging up on me."

"Not a chance," Bokuto and Oikawa answered in unison.

Kuroo raised an eyebrow. "Alright, you asked for this."

She dug her fingers into Oikawa's sides, and Oikawa jumped half a foot into the air and then started giggling. Kenma, alarmed, leapt off her lap and scurried back underneath the bed. "No - stoppit, dammit -" Kuroo smirked and tickled harder, and Oikawa's flailing rapidly grew weaker. "Kuroo, you prick-"

Kuroo eased off for a moment, only to wind her arms underneath Oikawa's and hold her fast. "Help me out here, Bo."

"Bokuto," Oikawa begged, breathless.

Unfortunately for Oikawa, Bokuto was easily swayed. "Sure, bro!" she answered, and leaned forward to hitch up Oikawa's shirt and tickle her exposed stomach mercilessly. She didn't let up until Oikawa was twitching pathetically underneath her, her pleas dissolved into helpless curses and laughter. Kuroo released her arms, and Oikawa instantly sat up, although she made no move to actually leave Kuroo's lap. Kuroo followed her anyway, sitting up and looping her arms around Oikawa's waist. Bokuto attempted to take Oikawa's hands again, but Oikawa swatted her away and patted down her mussed hair instead.

"You're terrible," she announced. "Both of you."

"I like your laugh," Bokuto replied, and then grinned as Oikawa avoided her eyes and mumbled something indistinct. Kuroo rested her chin on Oikawa's shoulder, and reached out towards Bokuto so they could hold hands. They lapsed into comfortable silence for a few minutes as Oikawa fussed over her hair and Bokuto and Kuroo played with each other's fingers around her.

Oikawa finally relaxed back against Kuroo again, watching her girlfriends' hand-holding devolve into a thumb war, and cleared her throat. "And, um, another thing, just in case. If anything happens… The team comes first."

She didn't have to spell it out - if they broke up, it couldn't affect their cohesion on the field.

"Of course," Kuroo agreed, and Bokuto nodded vehemently, then cursed at the distraction as Kuroo finally pinned down her thumb.

Rugby was the top priority.

"And you can have joint custody of Kenma if you want," Kuroo added, "but you'll have to pay some of her vet bills."

"And once it's warm, we can go have picnics on that point across the lake, with all the water lilies around it," Bokuto continued. "It'll be all hells of romo -"

"Isn't that the one everyone calls Makeout Point?" Oikawa wondered.

"Making out!" Bokuto crowed with delight. "Oikawa, you're great at this!" She lunged forward - Kuroo and Oikawa fell backwards together in surprise - and then Bokuto was leaning over them both with an excited grin. "What do you say, want to make out on a picnic blanket?"

"Bokuto," Oikawa replied, staring earnestly into Bokuto's clear golden eyes, "I would love to make out with you on a picnic blanket."

Bokuto's grin turned wicked. "How about on Kuroo's bed?"

Oikawa's hands snuck up to feel her girlfriend's biceps. She squeezed the muscles and sighed with pure satisfaction. "How about on Kuroo?"

Bokuto looked excited, then a little upset. "Oh, we can't leave her out, though!"

"That'd actually be kind of hot," Kuroo spoke up - and that was all the encouragement Bokuto needed to pounce on Oikawa and kiss her with sloppy enthusiasm.

Oikawa fielded the onslaught like a champ, guiding Bokuto into a kiss with a bit more finesse. Two beats later and she felt half a modicum of regret, because Bokuto with finesse was downright dangerous. She wrapped her arms around Bokuto's shoulders, enjoying the shift of the solid muscle under her touch, and let herself melt back against Kuroo's body as Bokuto kissed the thoughts right out of her head.

Underneath her, Kuroo had gone almost dead still, but her hands were resting on Oikawa's hips, and her fingers slid underneath Oikawa's shirt to rub slow circles against her hipbones. When they finally broke apart an inch or two, Oikawa started giggling.

Bokuto looked a little offended. "Hey, I can't be that bad of a kisser."

"No, no!" Oikawa hastily reassured her. "Not at all. It's just." She wiped the laughter from her eyes. "I've had a very eventful twenty minutes."

"Dude, me too!" Bokuto grinned right against her lips, pout gone as quickly as it had come. "You'll never guess - I got two girlfriends."

"That's so many," Oikawa said, and then giggled again as Bokuto peppered her lips, cheeks, and nose with more soft, fleeting kisses.

"Why don't you ever make fun of her when she says dumb shit?" Kuroo's tone was mock-annoyed underneath her.

"Cause she's cuter than you," Oikawa replied. She kissed the tip of Bokuto's nose, and Bokuto made a happy noise.

Kuroo frowned. "Hey, I'm very cute."

"You're cute!" Bokuto told her, at the same time as Oikawa said, "No".

Kuroo sat up a little and took hold of Oikawa's chin, turning her head to face her. "Hey."

"Mmhmm?" Oikawa's smile was mere inches away from her, and Kuroo gave up on words and instead just leaned forward.

She was in control of the kiss for about half a beat before Oikawa got her tongue involved and smoothly pushed Kuroo backwards and down. Oikawa wound their fingers together, pressing Kuroo's hands back against her pillow and settling between Kuroo's legs. She withdrew a little - but only to bite lightly at Kuroo's lower lip, then overwhelm her with another deep kiss. A tiny squeak escaped Kuroo's throat, and when Oikawa let go of her, she was flushed and wide-eyed. A thin strand of saliva stretched out between their lips and then broke. Impossibly, her hair had become even more mussed where it was spread across her pillow.

"Okay, that's a little bit cute," Oikawa admitted.

"So cute," Bokuto agreed. She scooted up, wrapped her arms around Oikawa's waist, and grinned wickedly down at Kuroo over Oikawa's shoulder. "Especially since you got her to shut up."

"I like you," Oikawa said to her, and Bokuto's grin got bigger. She leaned forward and turned her head to peck Oikawa's lips again. Meanwhile, Kuroo sat up, and her hand around the back of Bokuto's head stopped her from sitting back again.

"Hey, me too."

Oikawa shifted out of their way and watched them kiss with a careful eye. When Kuroo released Bokuto and laid back down, she observed, all casual, "You two seem used to that."

Kuroo and Bokuto exchanged a very loaded look, then Bokuto started chuckling.

"That has been a thing for… A while."

Oikawa nodded. "Figures."

9:13 P.M.

perfectkawa ✌: helloooooooooooooooo
hanamemeki: SHE RETURNS
matsukaweed: HAIL TO THE VICTOR
hanamemeki: tell us everything
Iwaizumi Hajime: Please, not everything.
perfectkawa ✌: WELL, iwa-chan
perfectkawa ✌: do you want me to start with a list of positions or just a direct chronological account?

Iwaizumi Hajime is now offline.

hanamemeki: there she goes
matsukaweed: I pick the chronological account
perfectkawa ✌: heh i didn't actually have sex
perfectkawa ✌: i just wanted to gross her out
matsukaweed: :O
matsukaweed: *:-O
hanamemeki: did they say no?
perfectkawa ✌: its a long story
matsukaweed: thats never stopped you before
matsukaweed: did you miscalculate?
perfectkawa ✌: NO!
hanamemeki: that's a yes
matsukaweed: now u HAVE to tell us
perfectkawa ✌: UGH ITS NOT IMPORTANT
perfectkawa ✌: THE END RESULT
perfectkawa ✌: is that i now have TWO GIRLFRIENDS
perfectkawa ✌: (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
matsukaweed: whoa
hanamemeki: NICE
matsukaweed: congratulations u gay loser
perfectkawa ✌: ty u piece of shit stoner
perfectkawa ✌: :3
matsukaweed: :-3
perfectkawa ✌: No.

There were lots of nice things about having two girlfriends.

Waking up slowly on Sunday mornings in a warm, soft pile of bodies was a nice thing about having two girlfriends. Snuggling together on a library beanbag with hot chocolate and textbooks was a nice thing about having two girlfriends. The expression on Konoha's face the first time Bokuto kissed both of them goodbye in front of her was an excellent thing about having two girlfriends.

Going to Kuroo's house on weekends, because Kuroo's dad wasn't around and Kuroo's mom got lonely and loved having two extra daughters to fill her home with noise - holing up together in Kuroo's childhood bedroom to make fun of her old posters at 10 PM and hold whispered conversations through the dark at 2 AM - that was a really, really excellent thing about having two girlfriends.

Inevitably, however, there were also some less-nice things about having two girlfriends. The main one was that, after the Terrible Threesome became official, they only had about three weeks of bliss before finals loomed over the student body like terrifying black thunderheads. Oikawa wasn't sure if proper girlfriend protocol said it was acceptable to postpone date time during studying time. But she was sure about the fact that that she had a courseload of cold hard science, with a lab practical exam and a written final for each of her classes - and, most taxing of all, any hands-on studying for her astronomy course had to be done at night. And so, two weeks before finals started, she bought a twenty-four-pack of Monster and a case of Clif bars, stacked her textbooks in the corner of her desk, and settled in for the long, grim, lonely haul.

One week before finals started, her door swung open and cut into the corners of her astronomy-induced stupor. "We're here!" Bokuto announced, ushering herself in. "Hey, you look like hell!"

"Leave," said Oikawa without looking up from her textbook.

"And we have takeout," added Kuroo, who was following behind Bokuto and carrying a bag with delicious smells wafting out of it.

"Stay," Oikawa amended her previous statement. "But be quiet about it."

They didn't, of course. Bokuto settled down on the rug and started setting out containers of Chinese food like some MSG-infused picnic. "Oikawa, come eat. It's study break time."

"Can't," Oikawa said shortly. "Don't you guys have your own exams to study for?"

"I only have papers due," Kuroo answered. "And I'm just editing them all right now."

"English majors," Oikawa muttered. "And you? You're animal biology, right?"

Bokuto shrugged, more preoccupied with inventorying their packets of duck sauce. "I'll just look over my notes the morning of the exams."

"You are infuriating," Oikawa told her.

"And you are hungry," Bokuto said. "Food time."

"I'm really not."

"You are."

"I'll eat later-"

"No, you won't."

Oikawa scowled down at the page. "You guys left me alone for a full week, can't you-"

"We did," Bokuto said, "but we weren't actually sure if you were alive. Which is bullshit, considering that we're next door neighbors. Kuroo called you once, and I called you a lot, but no dice."

Oikawa glanced at her phone, resting untouched on top of her minifridge. Guilt twinged in her chest when she noticed the notification light blinking green.

"Well, you have your answer," she said, turning back to her notes. "Clearly I'm doing fine."

"Bullshit," Bokuto coughed into her fist, and Oikawa flipped her off without looking up.

"Sure, sure. When's the last time you left this room?" Kuroo asked, swiping a plastic container out of Bokuto's clutches.

"Uh, yesterday evening, I think? I went to the observatory to use the telescope for a bit. Seriously, keep it down, this is a hard chapter."

Kuroo paused halfway through opening her food, thought for a moment, and then frowned up at Oikawa. "When did you last eat?"

"Shhhh," Oikawa absently ordered her. She stared down at her notes, lips moving silently with something about theoretical equilibrium.

"Oikawa, when did you last sleep?"

"I said shhh - hey! Hey, what are you doing-"

"Feeding you," Kuroo answered, and dropped Oikawa unceremoniously on the rug next to Bokuto, who was sitting cross-legged with a mildly alarming quantity of takeout containers in front of her. "Bokuto."

"I'm on it, bro!" Bokuto locked her arm around Oikawa's waist, holding her too tight to even squirm despite her best efforts. With her other arm, she gestured to the spread on Oikawa's rug. "Choose your poison."

"Is that all for us?!"

"Well, the chicken is for Kuroo, and you have to eat at least one full container of something. Your choice! The rest-" Bokuto motioned towards the other five containers- "is for me."

"Oh." She should've known better than to underestimate Bokuto's appetite. "Um, I'll take the shrimp, then. And I'm going to at least study while we eat."

"No you're not," Kuroo interjected.

"It's true," Bokuto added with a grave nod. "You won't remember anything. Trust me, I've eaten while I studied all the time and I never remember anything."

"That's not 'cause of the food!" Oikawa squirmed harder in Bokuto's iron grip. "Come on, at least let me get up and get my-"

"Oikawa," Kuroo cut in. "We're worried about you."

That silenced her for a moment. Bokuto took the opportunity to nab a piece of her shrimp, feel bad about it, apologize multiple times, and replace it with double its amount in beef from her own clump of containers.

"I'm worried about my physics grade," Oikawa grumbled back at Kuroo, but she didn't try to escape again. Instead, she settled into Bokuto's side and folded her legs more comfortably underneath her as Kuroo handed her a takeout container.

"Don't give me that smile," Oikawa muttered as she accepted the shrimp container and a plastic fork.

"What smile?"

"The smug one."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Kuroo, who was smiling smugly and knew exactly what she was talking about. Oikawa kicked her in the shin, then started to eat.

When she and Kuroo had finished their meals and Bokuto had inhaled enough Chinese takeout to feed a family of four, Oikawa ducked out from underneath Bokuto's arm, stood up, and stretched. Her back cracked loudly.

"Alright, you guys can leave now."

"We sure could," Kuroo agreed.

Oikawa's eyes narrowed. "And by that I mean, you guys are going to leave now."

"Mm." Kuroo reached out for her backpack and pulled out her laptop. Bokuto started gathering up the containers and sauce packets into the paper bag, and then picked up the trash and went into the hallway barefoot to throw it out.

"Kuroo."

But Kuroo was already settling down on her stomach on Oikawa's bed, long and lanky as an unbent paperclip. She didn't look away from the screen of her laptop as she replied, "Technology is doing some amazing things these days, you know."

"Like how you have a million ways available to amuse yourself that don't involve bothering me?"

Kuroo glanced up at Oikawa with her signature shit-eating grin, and Oikawa's heart quivered embarrassingly. "Like how I can work on my papers right here on your bed. Campus-wide wifi, you know?"

"And I can shit around playing Candy Crush anywhere I like!" Bokuto added as she reentered. She bumped Oikawa's shoulder affectionately with her own on her way to the ugly teal loveseat, where she flopped down with her limbs splayed out in all directions and dug her phone out of her pocket.

Oikawa sighed and sat down heavily at her desk again. The traitorous flutter in her chest told her in no uncertain terms that the battle was already lost. "Why don't you guys ever hang out in your own room?"

"Cause we like you," Kuroo answered from the bed, and Oikawa's stomach did something funny. Kuroo sat up and squinted at where Oikawa was determinedly focusing in on her homework. "Hey, are you blushing? You know we like you, right? We're dating."

Oikawa dropped her face down onto her desk and covered her head with her started snickering, which didn't help.

"I like you, Oikawa!" Bokuto called from the loveseat.

"I like you too," Oikawa groaned, face smushed against the desk.

"Do you like me?" Kuroo's voice was suddenly right next to her ear, and an involuntary shiver rippled down her body.

"You're the worst person I've ever met."

Her girlfriend's cackle was wicked, but when Kuroo's finger snuck underneath her chin and gently tugged, Oikawa still lifted her head to meet Kuroo's lips halfway.

---

Two days before finals started, at two thirty in the morning, Oikawa's door swung open. She looked up to see Kuroo standing in her doorway, hair even wilder than usual and a mildly frenzied look in her eye.

"You shouldn't barge in like that," Oikawa chastised her. "Like, I could've been asleep."

Kuroo laughed aloud at that. "You're funny. Anyway, something happened."

Oikawa swiveled her desk chair around to let Kuroo drop down into her lap. She blinked in slight confusion as her girlfriend explained that she had been hit with a wave of literary inspiration crashing over her in iambic pentameter and had subsequently decided to rewrite her entire ten-page paper on Twelfth Night.

"But you already have this version of the paper almost done, don't you? You don't have to rewrite it."

Kuroo shook her head vehemently. "I do."

"Will you get a bad grade if you turn it in like it is?"

"Well, no, but I have so many new ideas."

"But you'll have to write double time to get it done for the deadline."

"Yeah," Kuroo confirmed.

Oikawa waited for further clarification of Kuroo's logic. None was forthcoming.

"I think I'm missing something here."

Kuroo sighed and rested her head on Oikawa's shoulder. "Ah, you just don't understand."

"That is correct," Oikawa agreed. She wound her arms around Kuroo's waist and pulled her in a little closer. "But… If it's something you really need to do, you can stay here to work on it. I have Clif bars, and-"

She was cut off by a messy kiss. "Ew! Babe, that's gross-" Oikawa recoiled and put a hand on Kuroo's chest to hold her back. "Here, let me-"

Oikawa kissed her smile, this time with slightly more semblance of technique. Kuroo relaxed against her and kissed back soft and lingering, surging up and back like gentle swells on the surface of the lake without ever really breaking contact.

Finally, they separated by half an inch, and Kuroo grinned against her lips. "Did you just call me babe?"

"No."

"You did."

"I did not."

But half-formed giggles were spilling up out of Oikawa's throat between her words, and Kuroo's smile just got bigger. She slipped her hand into Oikawa's. "You think I'm a babe."

"Oh my god, shut up." And yet, Oikawa was laughing outright as Kuroo leaned in close and informed her,

"You think I'm a regulation hottie."

Oikawa unceremoniously shoved Kuroo off her lap and onto the floor. "I think you're a dweeb."

She didn't let go of Kuroo's hand, though, and Kuroo leaned her head against Oikawa's leg and twined their fingers closer together, still grinning up at her. "I think you definitely mean babe."

"An infant, maybe."

"Okay, that's probably fair." Kuroo squeezed her hand briefly, then released it, and unfolded herself from the floor. "Alright, I'm going to go get my laptop and books."

Oikawa leaned back deep into her chair. "You're going to suffer doing this, you know."

"I am," said Kuroo. "But suffering is always better with friends."

Oikawa squinted at her. "Did… Did you just friendzone me?"

A smirk settled over Kuroo's face like a slime mold. "You're my best friend, didn't you know?"

"Oh my god, just go get your laptop."

"Like a sister, really."

"Get out."

---

Bokuto wandered in later that day, when early-afternoon sunlight was streaming through the window. "Hey, guys! Where were you at breakfast?"

"Here," Kuroo answered, and Bokuto paused in surprise at the utter exhaustion in her voice.

"Whoa, you sound like hell! Did you sleep?"

"No," Oikawa said. "Not at all."

"I've been here since two thirty this morning," Kuroo added.

Bokuto pouted a little. "You guys had a sleepover without me? That's kind of bullshit."

"Bokuto, there was literally no sleeping involved."

"That's beside the point! Let's take a study break. Kuroo, come on, don't be lame."

"Can't, bro. I'm hella inspired right now."

"Yeah, but you're inspired to do nerd stuff, so I'm staging an intervention." Bokuto wandered over to the bed and squinted at Kuroo's laptop screen. "What even is that?"

"I'm rewriting my entire final Twelfth Night paper," Kuroo said.

Bokuto huffed. "Well, that can wait, can't it?"

"Bro," said Kuroo, "you know I love you, but shut up."

On the average day, one blunt rebuff was all it took to get Bokuto to back down. Unfortunately, today she wasn't so easily vanquished. She sighed dramatically and flopped down on the ugly teal loveseat. "We could go kick a ball around the quad, we could walk around the lake and make out on Makeout Point, we could-"

"Bokuto," Oikawa said, "shhhhh."

"You're a pair of losers," Bokuto retorted, sprawled across the hideous fabric.

"Bokuto."

"What?"

Her tone was a challenge, and Oikawa took it. She pushed back her chair and took two strides across the room to the loveseat. Bokuto grinned up at her, then faltered a little at the gleam in Oikawa's eyes. She opened her mouth for a question, but couldn't get a word out before Oikawa's finger was lifting her chin up, Oikawa's body was curving down against hers, and Oikawa's voice was velvet against her ear.

"Bokuto," she breathed. Bokuto quivered at the intensity in her voice. "We're going to focus on homework, okay?"

"Okay," Bokuto squeaked. One hand crept up to rest on Oikawa's hip, and Oikawa batted it away.

"That's what I thought." She smiled beatifically at Bokuto and returned to her desk, leaving Bokuto half-paralyzed on the loveseat.

"Kuroo, I really really like her," Bokuto said to the long, lean form on Oikawa's bed. Her voice was a little squeakier than usual, and Oikawa smiled to herself in victory as she returned to her homework.

---

On the final day of finals week, Kuroo turned in her new and improved paper, Bokuto made an appearance at her biology final, and the two of them met up outside the science building to await Oikawa after her astro exam. Finally, a trickle of exhausted students began slumping out the doors in twos and threes, with a familiar head of brown hair emerging last of all. Oikawa's face was drawn, her hair was uncharacteristically unstyled in a messy low ponytail, and the bags under her eyes could hold small change, but she walked with the tragic grace of a student who cares far less about the outcome of the exam than the fact that it is finally, finally over.

"How'd it go?" Bokuto asked, holding out a hand to support her. Oikawa collapsed onto the bench on the sidewalk and groaned incomprehensibly, throwing her arm over her face to block out the sun.

"C'mon, up and at em," Kuroo urged, putting an arm under her elbow. "It's all over now, we can go home and cuddle and pretend to know what you're talking about when you complain about the multiple choice."

"I don't think I can move," Oikawa announced.

"That's not a problem!" Bokuto answered. She scooped Oikawa up, threw her over her shoulder, and started heading back towards their dorm. Kuroo fell into step at her side, hand in hand with Bokuto and occasionally poking Oikawa's side just to see her halfhearted twitch. Otherwise, Oikawa hung there like a limp noodle, relaxing against Bokuto's shoulders and blinking against the daylight.

"I can put you down if you want," Bokuto offered when they were about halfway back to the dorm.

"No, no, this is just fine," Oikawa hastily reassured her. "I have a nice view." She reached down to squeeze Bokuto's firm butt and let out a satisfied sigh.

"Okay!" Bokuto squeezed her butt back, and Kuroo, not to be outdone, planted an affectionate kiss on the closest part of Oikawa, which was her bare shoulder. Oikawa mumbled out the verbal equivalent of a keyboard smash and buried her face in the printed letters "WANNA RUCK?" on the back of Bokuto's t-shirt, ignoring Kuroo's snorting laughter at her flushed cheeks.

Around them, the last few students left on campus were hurrying towards bus stops and parking lots, hauling suitcases full of the semester over their shoulders. The clouds above were heavy with the promise of mid-December snow, and only her furnace of a girlfriend underneath her kept Oikawa from shivering in the gray air. Their dorm was nearly deserted - they only passed a few people going the opposite direction down the halls before they finally reached Oikawa's room. Bokuto gently dumped Oikawa down onto one side of the ugly teal loveseat, grabbed her fluffy blanket from where it was draped over the back, and sat down next to her girlfriend.

Oikawa snuggled eagerly into Bokuto's side, resting her head on the other girl's deltoid. Kuroo helped spread the blanket over their legs, and then curled up on Bokuto's other side and dropped her head into her lap. Star charts and multiple-choice questions slowly drained out of Oikawa's mind, giving way to how nice Bokuto's Old Spice smelled next to her and how well Kuroo's fingers interlocked with hers where they rested on Bokuto's leg next to Kuroo's face.

"I like this," she mumbled.

Bokuto kissed the top of her head. "I like you too!"

"No," Oikawa said. She put her hand on Bokuto's bicep. "I mean this."

"Oh." Bokuto flexed obligingly, and Oikawa sighed with delight, pressing her face against the muscle.

"I like all of this," she added, gesturing to the rest of Bokuto. "And this is okay, I guess." She waved a hand in Kuroo's direction.

"Love you too," Kuroo deadpanned. Oikawa went quiet at that.

Bokuto looked down at her in amusement - always the most observant when it was least convenient. "I love you, Oikawa."

"Oh, for fuck's-"

"Tooru," Kuroo put in. Oikawa curled up in a shameful ball as Bokuto and Kuroo high-fived.

"I hate both of you."

Kuroo made kissy noises in her general direction, too lazy to get up and actually kiss her. "That's no way to talk to your dearests on the eve of your tragic separation."

"We have twenty hours until my train leaves," said Oikawa, "which gives me… Nineteen hours and fifty minutes to tell Bokuto that she's my favorite and you're a menace to society."

"I love you both equally!" Bokuto announced from above their heads.

"I love you too, bro," Kuroo told her. "I love your smile."

"Hey, I love your eyes!"

"Dude, I adore your hair."

"Aw, bro!" Bokuto looked entirely too pleased about that, considering that a hair compliment from Kuroo was like an ear compliment from Vincent Van Gogh. "I love your weird sense of humor!"

"Your energy lights up my life."

"Bro, you're so kind, and I love it."

"I love Bokuto's biceps," Oikawa interjected through a massive yawn.

"Absolutely," Kuroo agreed. She let go of Oikawa's hand and reached up to feel the bicep in question. Bokuto flexed again, just for her, and Kuroo hummed in appreciation.

"How are you real?" Oikawa asked Bokuto, point-blank.

Bokuto beamed. "I just came this way, you know?"

"I'm so grateful you did," Oikawa mumbled.

Kuroo let go of the bicep and took Oikawa's hand again. "Oikawa, your train leaves at ten tomorrow, right?"

"Mmhmm," Oikawa said. "And you…?"

"My mom is picking me up at noon," Kuroo answered. "She wanted to see you guys, but I told her Oikawa would probably be near death."

Oikawa frowned. "That wasn't very nice of you. I want to see her too. Even if from beyond the grave."

Kuroo squeezed her hand lightly. "Yeah, but I wanted to be able to kiss both my girlfriends goodbye."

"You still haven't told her, huh?" Bokuto asked, blunt as ever, and Kuroo went a little tense in her lap.

"Not that you have to if you don't want to," Oikawa added quickly.

"Thanks, babe. But yeah, uh." Kuroo didn't seem to notice how forcefully she was chewing on her lower lip. "She knows I'm bi, you know? And she took that fine. But I'm pretty sure she's still hoping that bi means boyfriend. Dunno how she'd react to not only one, but two girlfriends." She paused in surprise at the taste of copper in her mouth, and then released her lip and swiped her tongue across it. "She likes you guys a lot, and I like it that way, you know?"

Oikawa nodded. "That's understandable. I like that she likes us."

"I like that she sends us brownies," Bokuto added.

"Me too," said Kuroo. "I dunno, maybe in a few years."

"In a few years, eh?" Bokuto asked - which was a convenient cover for the flush flooding Oikawa's ears and the leap in her chest at the tacit implication. "You're thinking long-term there."

Only Bokuto would have addressed it so bluntly, but Kuroo didn't seem phased. "We'll take it one day at a time, bro. But, hey, I think we've got something good going here. And I can't see her face right now, but I know for a fact that Oikawa is blushing like a stoplight on the other side of you, so I'd guess she agrees."

"I agree too!" Bokuto replied, as Oikawa spluttered and buried her face in Bokuto's shoulder. "I love both of you. Like, a lot. And I know that you need more than love to make it work, but I think we've got the other bits too."

Kuroo lifted her head a little and nuzzled into the slight chub of Bokuto's stomach. "Your honesty is gonna kill me one day, bro. But you're right. Oikawa, you okay over there?"

"I'm good," Oikawa groaned, removing her face from its hiding place. "I … agree with Bokuto."

"Yeah!" Bokuto smiled down at the top of Oikawa's head. "I like this. I like how we can do this." For lack of a free arm, she jerked her chin down at the sleepy tangle of girlfriends draped over her.

"Yeah," Oikawa agreed. "We fit like this."

"Mmhmm," Kuroo said. "Especially since you're the shortest one here. Really brings it together."

Well, there went the moment. Oikawa's eyes narrowed. "One and a half inches, Kuroo."

"Teeny."

"I'm six feet tall, I'm not short!"

Kuroo reached up and flicked her forehead. "Smol." Her voice was soft with affection, and Oikawa couldn't really be mad at her.

"Bokuto, you're all moved in, right?" she asked, to avoid conceding the argument to Kuroo. Kuroo's amused chuckle told her that the effort had been in vain.

"You bet!" said Bokuto. Since she was staying at school to do research over the short winter term, she had already moved into her temporary room. ("Where's the rest of your stuff?" Oikawa had asked as they carried one small duffel to the dorm that housed the winter students, and spluttered in incredulity for the next ten minutes as Bokuto explained that that was all the clothing she owned, and then went into a detailed description of her inside-out-forwards-backwards method of wearing the same outfit for four days on end.)

"I still can't believe you got funded to play with dogs all break," Oikawa grumbled. "You can come to the train station, though, right?"

"Of course I can!" Bokuto sounded a little indignant that she'd even asked. "I want to say goodbye."

"Good. Cause I can't carry my own bags." Oikawa fell silent for a moment, then remembered to add, "And I'm going to miss you."

"Aw!"

"We should stay the night here," Kuroo suggested. "Since we won't see each other for a month or so."

"That's a good idea," Oikawa said, "but why is it always my room?"

"Kenma is delicate," answered Kuroo. "I don't like to change her environment too much."

"Maybe you just like to impose upon me," Oikawa muttered. "But fine. We can stay on this loveseat forever and just live off skin contact."

"I like that idea," Bokuto put in.

"We're going to have to go get dinner at some point, babe," Kuroo told her.

"Mm," Bokuto said. She yawned enormously. "Maybe later."

---

In the end, they all got their wishes for the next morning. Oikawa heaped all her bags on a willing Bokuto's back for the entire walk to the station, Bokuto rambled out a long and moving-where-coherent farewell, and Kuroo kissed both of them goodbye on the platform next to the idling train - first Oikawa, then Bokuto.

"Hey, wait, what's this all about?" Oikawa protested as her girlfriends attempted to hermetically seal themselves together at the mouth. "Aren't you both going back to campus together until Kuroo's mom gets there?"

Kuroo broke away to grin at her. "Yeah, but there was a mood."

"There was," Bokuto agreed, and leaned back in.

Oikawa scrunched up her nose. "You guys are just going to go back and make out on the floor for two hours anyway! Pay attention to me."

"Okay!" said Bokuto, letting go of Kuroo. She caught hold of Oikawa's hips and drew her in close to plant a cheerful kiss on her mouth with a loud smack.

Oikawa wiped her lips in satisfaction. "That's better. Can you help me carry my bags onto the train? And by help, I mean do it for me."

"Sure thing, babe!" Bokuto held out her arms, and Oikawa started loading her up like a cheerful lesbian forklift.

When Bokuto's arms were straining impressively under the weight of the luggage, Oikawa led her through the open doors of the train and directed her to a seat about halfway down the car. Kuroo followed behind and leaned over the back of the seat where Oikawa was setting up her phone and a small stack of books. "I think someone's getting exploited here."

"She doesn't mind," Oikawa assured her.

"I don't mind!" Bokuto agreed. She heaved the last bag up into the overhead rack and dusted off her hands. "Alright, I think me and Kuroo should get out of the train. Cause the train might leave, and then we'd end up at your house instead of here - oh, wait, actually-"

"No, Bokuto," Kuroo cut in. "Oikawa?"

Oikawa's hug hit her hard. Kuroo's hands hovered uncertainly in the air for a moment before landing on the small of Oikawa's back and pulling her in closer. Then Bokuto wrapped them both in her powerful arms and lifted the two up to tiptoes in a bear hug.

"Don't have too much fun without me," Oikawa said to Kuroo's shoulder, voice dangerously wobbly.

"No promises," Bokuto told her. The hug broke apart, Kuroo and Bokuto filed back down the aisle and onto the platform, and then they were gone.

Oikawa spent most of the train ride home attempting to sleep without letting her head loll anywhere close to the malodorous middle-aged man in the seat next to her. By the time she gave up, wishing for the millionth time that she had Bokuto's seemingly limitless ability to sleep anywhere, in any position, at any time, the sun was slanting low and shadowy through the plexiglass train windows. She watched the countryside roll past under the sunset until it gave way to pinprick stars.

Her sister picked her up at the train station, and Oikawa barely had the energy to haul her bags into her room and drop them in a small mountain on the floor before she fell asleep. She awoke late the next morning, and blinked in momentary confusion at the sunlight through the window - waking up was strange and disorienting without somebody else's alarm blaring on the other side of a thin dorm wall.

On the plus side, the last of the exam stress had drained from her body, and she felt refreshed enough to get up and start breakfast as she checked Skype. There were several new messages in the Seijoh group chat about their plans to meet up later that week, and one from Bokuto. This was surprising, since Bokuto usually wasn't much for social media. (When she had something to say, she just barged into Oikawa's room or shouted it through the wall.)

December 18

6:18 A.M.

HOOT HOOT: WAKE UP I HAVE AN IDEA

11:09 A.M.

perfectkawa ✌: good morning to you too
perfectkawa ✌: whats the idea?
HOOT HOOT: can we talk about it on video call?
HOOT HOOT: I miss you :C
perfectkawa ✌: bokuto its been less than a day
perfectkawa ✌: i miss you too though

perfectkawa ✌ is now calling…

---

December 31

from: Mrs. Kuroo, 2:38 P.M.
Hi, Oikawa! Is your train in yet?

to: Mrs. Kuroo, 2:41 P.M.
hi auntie! its almost there, im going to meet up with bokuto rn ⊂((・▽・))⊃

to: Mrs. Kuroo, 2:42 P.M.
we'll be there around eight!

from: Mrs. Kuroo, 2:46 P.M.
You know where the key is. I'm going out on the town for the night, but I'll make you your first breakfast of the new year!

The platform was empty when Oikawa's train pulled in. She stopped on the platform and was halfway through a text to Bokuto when the girl in question burst up out of the staircase to the platform.

"Sorry, I got distracted!"

"S'okay," Oikawa told her, sliding her phone into her pocket and linking arms with Bokuto. She stood up on her tiptoes to peck Bokuto's lips. "I never really expect you to be on time to anything."

"Hey!"

"Am I wrong?"

"No, but that's not the point! What kind of girlfriend would I be if I left you stuck here?"

Bokuto genuinely looked like her hamster had died, so Oikawa patted her arm as they made their way down the stairs and through the station. "You know we've been living right outside this city all year, right? I do know my way around."

"But you can't carry your own bags!"

"All I have with me is an overnight bag," Oikawa pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'm still carrying it now, aren't I?" For emphasis, Bokuto shrugged the shoulder with Oikawa's bag slung over it.

"Well, that's just a given."

The cold air had a bite to it when they emerged from the doors of the station. Oikawa immediately untangled her arm from Bokuto's to shove her hands into her pockets. "Ugh, I forgot gloves."

"I didn't!" Bokuto reached into the bottomless pockets of her coat and pulled out a pair.

Oikawa made a face. "That's still only one pair, Bokuto."

"No, we can share!" Bokuto tugged on the right glove and held out the left towards Oikawa.

"Oh." Oikawa accepted the glove - too big, but she didn't really mind - and slid her bare right hand into her girlfriend's. "This is really cute, Bokuto."

"So cute," Bokuto agreed.

They wandered through the city in no real hurry to get anywhere. New Year's Eve had dawned crispy and clear, but by the early afternoon, fleecy clouds crowded the sky like a low-hanging flock of off-white sheep. One stray snowflake caught in Oikawa's eyelashes, then another joined it. She paused in the middle of the sidewalk and let go of Bokuto's hand to reach out with her palm upturned. A moment later, half a dozen snowflakes were melting on her bare skin.

"It's snowing!" Bokuto announced unnecessarily to the entire sidewalk. Then she went cross-eyed as a big, fluffy flake landed on her nose. "Yo!"

"Grown-ass woman," Oikawa muttered, watching Bokuto lunge forward to try to catch a snowflake with her tongue.

"Dammit - I can't get one!" Bokuto cursed and kicked the snowbank. "Oikawa, this is hard."

Oikawa put her bare hand into her pocket. She looked Bokuto dead in the eye and poked her tongue out half an inch. Almost instantly, a flake landed on it.

"That's not fair!" Bokuto cried.

Oikawa took her hand and started walking again. "It's cause you kept moving. You have to stay still." It had also been almost entirely luck, but Bokuto didn't need to know that.

"That's not fun at all, though!" Bokuto wound her fingers through Oikawa's and swung their hands back and forth. "Hey, you look really pretty."

Oikawa smiled at her. "I always do." She batted her eyes a little, for Bokuto's benefit. Snowflakes were clinging to her lashes and nestling into her hair like fairy dust.

"You do," Bokuto said. "You are so pretty."

"And you are a lesbian daydream," Oikawa told her. "Come on, let's get inside. It looks like it's getting heavy quickly."

They ended up ducking into the nearest hole-in-the-wall storefront, where an antique neon orange sign advertised "NOODLES $5". Inside, a few booths with splitting vinyl upholstery jostled for space with worn wooden chairs and tables, and the elderly owner was sweeping away the old year with single-minded determination. A spotty-faced waitress took their orders - one shrimp ramen for Oikawa, one of everything in the meat section of the menu for Bokuto. They played footsies below the table and rehashed the 2015 Rugby World Cup for the millionth time above it until the food arrived and words were discarded for more important matters.

"Kuroo doesn't know anything, does she?" Bokuto asked, after she had inhaled her first bowl.

"I don't think so," Oikawa said. "But I'll check."

to: Mrs. Kuroo, 4:36 P.M.
she doesn't know we're coming, does she?

from: Mrs. Kuroo, 4:37 P.M.
She's clueless, no worries! 👍

from: Mrs. Kuroo, 4:39 P.M.
She said that she wanted to just have a quiet night in tonight. Get that nerdy daughter of mine to have some fun, would you?

from: Mrs. Kuroo, 4:40 P.M.
But not too much fun. ;-)

"She's really the only one who can get away with that," Oikawa muttered.

Bokuto craned her neck across the table, trying to see the screen. "Who, Kuroo's mom? Get away with what?"

Oikawa tilted the phone screen to show her. "She puts noses in her smiley faces."

"What's wrong with that?"

Oikawa wrinkled her nose. "Doesn't it bother you?"

"Why would it?"

"It's noses. In smileys."

"But real faces have noses on them."

"Ugh, no, it's different. The point is, you're wrong. And Kuroo doesn't know we're coming, no thanks to your big mouth."

Bokuto chose to ignore the first statement and just grinned at Oikawa. "You love my big mouth."

"I do," Oikawa agreed, and leaned across the table to prove it. Mid-kiss, Bokuto took the opportunity to attempt to steal all remaining bits of Oikawa's shrimp out of her mouth, and Oikawa pushed her back, pulling a face.

"Put your tongue away, you're being gross."

"You're mean." Bokuto pouted for a moment and then got distracted by her next bowl of food. She shoveled a too-big bite into her mouth, and asked around it, "Oh, man, how should we surprise her?"

Oikawa sucked up a single noodle. "Well, her mom said she's staying in for the night like the loser she is. So we mostly have to make sure she doesn't see us walking up."

"Oh, yeah," Bokuto said. "Like, if she's looking out the window, it won't be a surprise at all. Um…"

She fell silent, and they both thought hard for a moment.

"I got it," Oikawa said suddenly.

December 31

8:14 P.M.

HOOT HOOT: BRO HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE
ur favorite lolcat: oh hey
ur favorite lolcat: happy new years eve
ur favorite lolcat: cant believe earth is turning 2016 years old
HOOT HOOT: OH is that what it stands for?
ur favorite lolcat: yeah dude what did you think
HOOT HOOT: 2016 years since the first human was born?
ur favorite lolcat: oh its probably both
ur favorite lolcat: the earth cant have been around for that long before humans
ur favorite lolcat: like
ur favorite lolcat: it was ready for us
HOOT HOOT: THAT MAKES SENSE
HOOT HOOT: BRO CAN WE CALL
HOOT HOOT: I MISS YOU
ur favorite lolcat: aw
ur favorite lolcat: sure
HOOT HOOT: i cant do video though, just audio, cause im on data :/
ur favorite lolcat: its all good
ur favorite lolcat: ill host

ur favorite lolcat is now calling…

The branches of the tree above them shielded them from most of the driving snow, but Bokuto still cupped her hand around her phone to protect it. Oikawa, nestled close into her side, peered at the screen as Kuroo fizzled into view, fiddling with a strand of her hair and waiting for Bokuto to answer the call. Behind her, Oikawa could see the familiar wall of her small kitchen.

"Okay, so she's at the kitchen table. Just keep her distracted while we come up. I'm not gonna talk - don't mention me being here, okay?"

Bokuto nodded, face set with determination. "Got it."

Oikawa zipped her lips, and then reached out and pressed the audio-only ANSWER CALL button on Bokuto's screen. Then she started walking up the sidewalk toward Kuroo's house, tugging Bokuto along behind her.

"Hey, bro!" Bokuto greeted her, and Kuroo's grainy face split with a smile.

"Hey, Bokuto."

"You're home on New Year's Eve, huh? That's kind of lame."

"Hey, I didn't call you to be insulted." Kuroo was still smiling, though. "What are you doing tonight?"

Bokuto smiled back, even though Kuroo couldn't see it. "I'm home for the long weekend, and the old Fukurodani team is gonna turn up at Yukie's. Are your former teammates being as uncool as you?"

"Well, Kenma the human is spending the evening with their family. And you know I'm not really a fan of big celebrations for holidays."

"Yeah, but you and them are both - oof!" Bokuto slipped on a patch of slick ice covered by new snow - and since Oikawa was still pressed against her side, they both went down in a heap. Oikawa frantically muffled her own shriek with her hands.

On the small screen, Kuroo's eyebrows shot up in alarm at the noise. "Oh, shit, are you okay?"

"Yeah, dude," Bokuto managed to tell her phone, which had landed a few feet away in the snowbank. "I just fell." She stood up, brushing snow off her knees, and offered Oikawa a hand up. They were in front of Kuroo's house by now, and Oikawa put a warning finger to her lips as they headed up the brick walkway towards the door. If Kuroo heard them now, it would all be over. "I'm okay, though," Bokuto added in a slightly quieter voice.

"Are you outside or something?" Kuroo asked. "It sounds windy."

"I'm taking a walk!" said Bokuto. She wasn't entirely wrong - Kuroo didn't need to know that the walk was up the sidewalk to her own front door. "With Akaashi, cause it's snowing."

"Cool, it's snowing here too. Can I say hi to them?"

"Uh-" Bokuto glanced at Oikawa. Oikawa just shrugged and jostled past her towards the doorbell. "They're, um, in the bathroom."

Kuroo's brow furrowed. "While you're on a walk?" Bokuto was saved from answering by the ring of the doorbell in Kuroo's background, tinny over her webcam's microphone. "Oh, be right back, I gotta get that." She stood up and left the camera's view, leaving Bokuto watching her empty kitchen, then returned a moment later. "Actually, I'm home alone right now, so I'm taking you with me in case it's an axe murderer. You can't see her, but Kenma the cat is worked up for some reason, and I trust her intuition."

"Your mom isn't there?" Bokuto asked from the screen as Kuroo picked up her laptop and carried it through the short hallway to her front door.

"Nah, she went out with friends for the night - jesus, Kenma's scratching at the door, if I die tell my mother I love her - okay, here goes."

Oikawa had huddled up against the front door for shelter from the snow, and so when it opened inwards, she fell in with a startled curse.

"Oh, fuck -" Bokuto lunged forward to catch her - as Kuroo stood there in the entryway, the winter storm blowing into her foyer, snowflakes melting on the keyboard of the laptop balanced on her left arm, and pure shock written across her face in a slack-jawed O. On the floor, Kenma purred and wound around Bokuto and Oikawa's ankles.

Oikawa recovered her feet and stood up straight, brushing snow off her jacket.

"Um, happy new year," she said. Bokuto had the presence of mind to tap the END CALL button on her phone. On Kuroo's screen, the Skype call hung itself up.

"Wh-" Kuroo started, then tried again. "You- how-"

"Well," Oikawa said, "we wanted to surprise you, you know, and your mom helped us out."

"We wanted to be together for New Year's!" added Bokuto. She bent down and scooped up Kenma from the floor, cuddling her into her arms. "Cause we missed you."

"We did," Oikawa confirmed. She reached out and scritched Kenma's head.

"Oh my god," said Kuroo. Her voice cracked on the god - and she sunk to the snow-dusted floor, pressing her face into the crook of her elbow. "You guys-"

"You're crying!" Bokuto observed.

"I'm not-" Kuroo swiped her arm across her eyes, then managed a smile up at her girlfriends. "Oh my god - come inside, close the door, it's cold out-" She placed her laptop on the floor, picked it back up, put it down again, stood up, turned to Bokuto, and then turned to Oikawa, with her hands fluttering uncertainly as though she wasn't sure whom to hug first.

Bokuto solved the problem for her by pulling them both into a snowy embrace. Kenma landed on the floor with a loud and annoyed meow. Oikawa wriggled around in her grasp until Kuroo was sandwiched between the two of them, facing Bokuto. Kuroo tilted her head forward to rest on Bokuto's shoulder, incredulous giggles mixing with near-silent hiccups.

Bokuto allowed this for about two seconds, then told her, "Stop crying, you loser!"

"Oh, shut up, just - come here - goddammit, Bokuto, I can't kiss you if you're smiling that much-"

"You could kiss me instead," Oikawa suggested, and Kuroo squirmed around in the tangled embrace to take her up on the offer. Bokuto waited impatiently until they separated a little, then burst out,

"Okay, now me."

"No," said Kuroo.

"What! Why?!"

"Cause you called me a loser." She pressed her forehead against Oikawa's, and Oikawa took the opportunity to rub her cold nose against Kuroo's.

"You guys can't give each other Eskimo kisses and leave me out of it!" Bokuto complained behind them.

"See, we're the Eskimos," Kuroo explained, "and you are the parka." She jerked her chin towards Bokuto's muscular arms, still encircling all three of them. Unfortunately, the motion knocked her forehead into Oikawa's cheek. Oikawa swore loudly and recoiled, then lost her footing in the half-melted snow on the floor. Bokuto's arms tightened in surprise - and then they all went down in a heap.

"Ow," Bokuto whined from the top of the pile. She rolled off, moving her limbs gingerly. "You guys broke me."

"Don't even pretend, we all know you're unbreakable," Oikawa groaned from the bottom. "Besides, you landed on top of both of us."

"Yeah, but Kuroo has a really bony ass - ow!" Kuroo kicked her in the shin. Bokuto pouted mightily. "You're so mean- huh?"

Kuroo shifted over towards her on the floor and took hold of Bokuto's face with both hands, kissed her once, twice, again. Bokuto squinted at her between kisses, looking amused. "You're crying again?"

Kuroo swatted her halfheartedly and then kissed her again. "I missed you, you goober."

"Bro, it's been, like-" kiss- "two weeks." Bokuto bumped her forehead against Kuroo's. "But I missed you-" kiss- "too. You and your-" kiss- "bony ass." She patted Kuroo on the shoulder a little.

"If you're done flailing around on the floor," Oikawa said from above them, "we could, you know, go somewhere that isn't turning into a puddle."

"Okay, okay." Kuroo wiped her nose on Bokuto's jacket, stood up, and led them into the kitchen, where she put her laptop down on the worn wooden table. Christmas carols leftover from the recent holiday were wandering out of the kitchen radio, like last night's hungover partygoers emerging blinking into the bright morning sunlight.

Bokuto hopped up onto the counter, then half-fell off it when she noticed the blue-and-white ball resting on the floor next to the fridge. She pointed at it. "Rugby!"

"Not in the house, Bokuto - Bokuto-" Kuroo lunged between an advancing Bokuto and the ball and dropped into a fighting stance. Bokuto's eyes gleamed, and she jumped forward, dragging Kuroo down into an impromptu wrestling match. While they were both distracted, Oikawa sidled in and swiped the ball up from the floor.

"Bokuto!" she said, and broke into a run down the short hallway towards the living room.

Bokuto's eyes lit up. She stood up from the floor, peeled Kuroo off, and started running after Oikawa. "With you, with you!"

"On me!" Oikawa called back, and then tossed the ball off to her side. Bokuto burst up to snatch it out of midair, and then launched herself forward past the couch, which she had apparently decided was the try line. She slammed the ball down onto the carpet, and Oikawa skidded forward and landed on top of her, gleefully messing up Bokuto's hair as Bokuto whooped in victory.

"You guys can't team up!" Kuroo protested, entering the room at a more reasonable pace.

"But we can," Oikawa countered. She leaned down and kissed Bokuto's forehead, then the tip of her nose, then squeaked in surprise as Bokuto flipped them over and pinned Oikawa down underneath her. Bokuto kissed half-formed words right out of her mouth, and Oikawa kicked her feet a little in happiness.

Kuroo came up next to them, looking amused. "Now who's flailing around on the floor?"

Bokuto broke away to grin up at Kuroo. "We just really like to roll around on the ground together, you know?"

"Yeah." Oikawa pushed them both up to a sitting position, eyes wide and innocent. "Cause of rugby. All that tackling."

Kuroo rolled her eyes and offered Oikawa a hand up. Oikawa, who was feeling wicked, gently caught the proffered hand in both hers instead. She raised it to her lips, pressing kisses to the tips of her fingers. When she reached Kuroo's pinky, she drew it between her lips and sucked lightly for a moment, then released it and looked up. Kuroo's lips were parted slightly, and her cheeks-

"You're - you're blushing," Oikawa said, half-surprised.

"I am not," said Kuroo, who was.

With difficulty, Oikawa suppressed her delight and instead just blinked innocently up at Kuroo. "Oh?" She licked a long stripe up the underside of Kuroo's finger, curling her tongue around the sides of the digit. Kuroo's breath caught in her throat.

"You so are!" Bokuto exclaimed.

Kuroo dropped down to kneel next to them and leaned forward until her forehead was nearly touching Oikawa's. "You have that effect on me," she murmured, looking up at Oikawa through her impossibly long eyelashes. Then Oikawa was blushing too, not quite meeting Kuroo's honey-gold gaze.

Bokuto interrupted the moment by standing up, dumping Oikawa onto the floor. She ignored Oikawa's loud complaints to announce one of her own: "I'm hungry!"

"Eat me," Kuroo suggested.

"Dude, you'd probably taste all stringy! I'm gonna go check the fridge." Bokuto disappeared into the kitchen again, leaving Kuroo and Oikawa staring at each other.

"She doesn't-" Oikawa started to explain at the same time that Kuroo began, "I shouldn't have expected-" They stopped at the same time, and then Kuroo started chuckling.

"Right."

"Bokuto," Oikawa agreed.

They got up and followed Bokuto's exit back to the kitchen. Oikawa sat down at the table and started trying to guess Kuroo's laptop password. Kuroo went to help Bokuto out of the freezer, where her broad shoulders had gotten stuck.

By the time Bokuto was freed, Oikawa had gone through every variant on Kozume Kenma that she could think of and was moving on to different breeds of cats. Bokuto shook her head like a wet Newfoundland, sending ice crystals flying out of her hair. Then she peered back into the freezer.

"Okay! What are we making?"

"Oh, jeez, dude, I don't know." Kuroo, standing next to her, rubbed the back of her neck. "We don't even have that much real food right now-"

Bokuto gaped in horror. "You have no food?"

"Look, I wasn't expecting guests-"

"We're not guests, we're your girlfriends," Oikawa reminded her. "We can make dinner. Also, you're locked out of your laptop for half an hour."

"What?!" Kuroo came up behind Oikawa and squinted at the screen. "Oikawa, why?"

"I was trying to guess your password," Oikawa explained. "So I could go on Facebook and post a bunch of those conspiracy theories you were making fun of me for all semester."

Kuroo sighed and slumped down to rest her chin on the top of Oikawa's head. "You're such an ass."

Oikawa's lips curved up in a smile. "You love me."

"Can't deny it," Kuroo acknowledged, then kissed Oikawa's head and stood back up. "Alright, let's do this."

"Kuroo, I'm stuck again," said Bokuto's muffled voice inside the freezer, and Kuroo let out a deep sigh.

They pooled their cooking skills and meager ingredients. Bokuto knew how to make grilled cheese, but nobody could find cheese. There were a few eggs, but Kuroo wasn't sure if they had gone bad or not, and they wasted a solid fifteen minutes crowded around Bokuto's phone (Kuroo's laptop was still locked) on Google, trying to figure out how to tell if an egg was fresh.

But the real reason it took them more than an hour to finish cooking anything was the constant contact. Bokuto was the most openly clingy, hanging off Oikawa's shoulders and interrupting whatever nonsense was coming out of Kuroo's mouth with haphazard kisses all over her face. Kuroo was less obvious about it, but her fingers would trail across Oikawa's palm, or her lips across Bokuto's bare shoulder. Banter flowed across the kitchen like streams in the coming springtime, and even through Oikawa's alternating amusement, disbelief, and pure exasperation with her girlfriends, what lingered throughout the entire process was deep, satisfied affection.

It felt right. It fit.

In the end, their attempt at soup was ruined when Kuroo decided to add chunks of bread. ("To give it body," she had explained, and Bokuto had nodded in agreement.) Ten minutes later, Oikawa, standing in front of the stove and swinging her and Bokuto's linked hands back and forth a little, frowned down at the unappealing concoction. "Too many cooks spoil the dish?"

"Maybe the dish," Kuroo acknowledged. She wound her arms around Oikawa's waist and kissed the side of her neck. "But I think this is just the right amount of cooks for everything else."

"Dude," Bokuto said on Oikawa's other side. "That's mad gay."

Kuroo disentangled herself from Oikawa so she could grab Bokuto's face and kiss her hard. Bokuto gladly reciprocated, then added,

"No homo."

"None at all," Kuroo affirmed, and they high fived while Oikawa rolled her eyes mightily.

They made a semblance of manners by setting the table before sitting down and digging into the surviving food. Bokuto attempted to hold hands with Oikawa under the table, was thoroughly rebuked due to the amount of grease on her fingertips, and pouted until Kuroo leaned over and gave her an equally greasy kiss.

"Gross," Oikawa said, and Kuroo grinned at her.

"Hell yeah."

When their plates were clean, Kuroo gathered them up, dumped them in the sink, and sat back down to continue their conversation about the merits of different kinds of dogs. The one thing the kitchen did have in abundance was cocoa powder, and Kuroo got up to refill their mugs with hot chocolate again and again as the minutes of laughter stretched into hours.

"Hey, Oikawa, how long until next year?" Bokuto asked at one lull in conversation. Oikawa glanced down at her phone, then started giggling.

"Negative twelve minutes."

"What!" Bokuto climbed half across the table to peer down at her phone and confirm. "Shit, we missed it!"

Kuroo gently shoved her off the table and back into her chair. "It's okay, bro. It's just a time."

"Nooooo," Bokuto said, looking genuinely upset. "I wanted to have a midnight kiss!"

"It's a moot point anyway," Oikawa reminded her. "You can't kiss both of us exactly at midnight."

"We could all smush our faces together," Kuroo suggested.

"No," Oikawa said bluntly.

"Guys, stop arguing!" Bokuto interrupted. "We didn't do anything for midnight, that's so lame!"

"Well, it's stopped snowing," Kuroo pointed out. "We can still go watch the rest of the fireworks."

Bokuto yelled a little in excitement and erupted out of her chair. She bolted down the hallway towards the front door, slipping and sliding across the wood in her socked feet before she disappeared from sight. A moment later, Oikawa and Kuroo heard the door slam open and Bokuto's whoop of exhilaration rapidly getting more distant. Kuroo's eyes widened with alarm and she sprang up to chase after her at a dead sprint. "Bokuto - GET BACK HERE AND PUT A COAT ON-"

Oikawa stood up to follow more slowly, cracking her back a little after sitting down for so long. The fireworks would be nice, but it was just a formality, honestly, she didn't really mind that they'd missed midnight-

Wait.

Midnight.

The new year - shit! Oikawa frantically dug her phone out of her back pocket - six new Skype messages, shit, shit, shit-

January 1, 2016

12:01 A.M.

hanamemeki: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
matsukaweed: happy 2016
Iwaizumi Hajime: Happy new year, guys.

12:03 A.M.

matsukaweed: …
hanamemeki: wow
hanamemeki: lame

12:15 A.M.

perfectkawa ✌: happy new year! (*＾v＾*)
hanamemeki: hmmm
perfectkawa ✌: IM SORRY
matsukaweed: not sure if we should accept that
perfectkawa ✌: i was DISTRACTED
matsukaweed: sounds like excuses to me
perfectkawa ✌: WHATEVER
matsukaweed: making out w your girlfriends?
perfectkawa ✌: WE MISSED IT
perfectkawa ✌: because we were DISTRACTED
hanamemeki: ...so
hanamemeki: making out with your girlfriends
perfectkawa ✌: UGH
perfectkawa ✌: (¬_¬)
perfectkawa ✌: guys
perfectkawa ✌: can i tell you a secret
Iwaizumi Hajime: If you must.
perfectkawa ✌: i think
perfectkawa ✌: im in love
hanamemeki: ya
matsukaweed: whats the secret
perfectkawa ✌: ?
perfectkawa ✌: you guys KNEW?
Iwaizumi Hajime: You're not subtle.
perfectkawa ✌: IWA-CHAN figured it out?
perfectkawa ✌: i must've been REALLY obvious!
Iwaizumi Hajime: :-(
perfectkawa ✌: stop
matsukaweed: :-) :-) :-) :-)
hanamemeki: ;-)
perfectkawa ✌: UGHHHHH

12:17 A.M.

Iwaizumi Hajime: I mean it, though.
perfectkawa ✌: private chat? oooh~
Iwaizumi Hajime: I didn't want to distract Matsukawa and Hanamaki from making fun of you.
perfectkawa ✌: maybe you're just emotionally repressed (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
Iwaizumi Hajime: Would you shut up?
Iwaizumi Hajime: I'm trying to be nice. You really aren't subtle.
Iwaizumi Hajime: And let me say, if you bring this up in the morning, I will personally disembowel you.
Iwaizumi Hajime: But I'm happy for you.
Iwaizumi Hajime: I'm glad that they know how terrible your personality is and yet they put up with you anyway.
perfectkawa ✌: not going to tell me not to fuck this up, iwa-chan?
Iwaizumi Hajime: I think you already know that.
perfectkawa ✌: heh
perfectkawa ✌: suppose i do

"Oikawa, are you coming?"

Oikawa glanced up in surprise at Kuroo's slightly breathless voice. Her girlfriend was standing in the doorframe, with their other girlfriend squirming around in a headlock under her arm. Bokuto's socks were crusted with snow, but she looked unrepentant.

"In a moment," Oikawa answered. She tapped out a quick "gtg 3", shoved her phone back into her pocket, and turned her smile on her girlfriends in the doorway. "Sorry, I had to message someone."

"No rush," Kuroo said. She released Bokuto, but kept a tight grasp on her arm. "We've got all year, you know."

"We've got lots of years!" Bokuto put in. She wriggled out of Kuroo's hold and darted away, only to be caught again by the back of her shirt. "But we've only got three more minutes of fireworks, so let's go!"

"Yeah," Oikawa agreed, and fell in step on Bokuto's other side. She reached up to ruffle Bokuto's hair, treating her to the rarity of a truly sincere smile. "We've got plenty of time."