After they'd apparated back to the Tsukishimas, Hermione felt awkward. She didn't really want to have this conversation with Teddy distracting them, but she also didn't want to leave Teddy alone with Malfoy, nor did she want to go in the house to talk because then the Tsukishimas would be there….

"For Merlin's sake, you two are so obvious. Look, I don't know what was on Granger's mind that threw Kuroo-san for a loop earlier, but obviously something happened. I'll watch the brat." Malfoy glared at them both. "You two go for a walk or something."

Hermione bit her lip. They didn't know what Malfoy was up to. Would it really be wise to—

"Go!" Malfoy grabbed the handle of the pram and pushed it a few inches toward the tent in the backyard. "If you're that paranoid set up a perimeter ward or something, Granger. But I'm not going to hurt my closest living relative that's not in Azkaban."

Hermione winced. Maybe she was being too paranoid. "Sorry, Malfoy. Yes, that would be lovely."

"Finally." The Slytherin rolled his eyes, then walked toward the tent, disappearing inside with Teddy.

"So…" Tetsurou's hand reached out, his fingers threading through hers. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

She nodded, but she did set up a perimeter ward to prevent anyone from leaving the tent. Earlier, she'd… everything had felt so clear in her head. But now that it was time to actually talk with Tetsurou about it, to say aloud that she…

She couldn't do it.

Next to her, Tetsurou was silent as they walked down the road.

Nervously, Hermione tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She didn't know what to say. She hadn't intended for him to find out like that, but she also had no clue what she should say now that he did know.

They passed one house after another.

The silence grew.

Hermione bit her lip. What should she say? Tetsurou was…He was everything she could ever want in a partner. She supposed that's what a soulmate was meant to be, but it was still so overwhelming! Only a few months ago, she would have sworn she was in love with Ron, and now—

"I love you too, you know."

Hermione's brain froze. She let out a startled squeak as her head whipped toward Tetsurou, "What?" She tried to search his face, but he wasn't looking at her. Instead, he was staring straight forward at the road in front of them.

He felt a little nervous and… Oh. She'd noticed this emotion for a while, now, honestly, but she'd hesitated to call it anything other than fond, or caring, or even liked a lot, but…

Love?

"And I'd felt the same feeling within you, but you hadn't seemed willing or ready to verbalize it, so…" he shrugged. "We have our bond, right? We don't need words to express emotions. Or at least, I'd thought that. But hearing it…" Finally, Tetsurou turned to look at her, "hearing it was really nice, even if it was just hearing it mentally. It's ok if you can't say it aloud yet, though."

His eyes were so warm, so… loving. Hermione rubbed her arm uneasily. "Tetsurou, I…" she paused, trying to find the right words. "I think I've loved you for a while, now, but I only just realized it."

"A while, hmm?" He stopped, pulling her hand so that she turned toward him and stood in front of him. His hands reached out, resting on her waist. Hermione blushed, crossing her arms defensively.

"Maybe? Yes?" Hermione shook her head, "I'm not very good with emotions. Practically anyone could tell you that. But I was talking with Bokuto earlier and he mentioned how he really wished that he and Akaashi could be public with their relationship like we can, and… well, it helped put things into perspective a bit, I suppose?"

"And the marriage bit?" Hazel eyes studied her, calm and curious.

"That was part of it?" She took a deep breath, uncrossing her arms and letting them rest on Tetsurou's waist. "I want to be with you all the time. No more having separate bedrooms for propriety's sake and having to part ways every night. I want… I want everyone to know that you're mine and no one else can have you."

Tetsurou laughed, leaning down and resting his forehead against hers. "That's all great, but Mio, no one else has a chance against you. You don't have to marry me to prove that. You're completely and utterly amazing." He pulled her closer, hugging her and resting his head against hers. "I'll always be yours."

Hermione felt her shoulders relax in his embrace. "I want everyone to know that we're together."

"We don't have to be married for that to happen, love."

"I want to live together while you're in college."

Tetsurou let out a soft hum. "Yeah. That would definitely be nice." He sighed, arms tightening briefly around her before pulling back to make eye contact with her. "If we're really doing this, you should know in non-magical Japan you have to have parental permission to marry before you're twenty."

"Really?!" But in England it was 18… she'd never even thought that might be an issue.

"Yeah." He sighed. "I looked it up a few days ago because I wasn't sure. Under the law you're basically emancipated, plus a foreign citizen and of marriageable age in your country, so you'd be fine, but I'll have to get my parents' permission. Not that I think they wouldn't let us! My mom's the one who first had the ambassadorship idea and they know we're already legally married and all that, but…." Tetsurou's voice trailed off and he looked off to the side.

"But that's how uncommon it is."

"Yeah. Most people here don't get married until they're almost 30, Mio."

"That's actually a little lower than the UK average."

Was she insane to be considering this? They were so young…

But they would be spending their lives together, either way.

Hermione hugged Tetsurou again, resting her head against his chest. "You haven't actually said what you want, Tetsurou."

"I've never been one to care about what other people think, Mio. I know we're together. I know you're my soulmate. You're amazing, so showing you off would be nice, but I can already do that if we're dating. Living together definitely sounds nice, but we can do that even if we don't get married."

Hermione scoffed. "Your society would hate that even more than if we got married young."

"If we stayed in the city it wouldn't be as bad." He shrugged. "And like I said, I don't really care what others think."

"I don't want you to have to choose universities based on needing to stay in the city, Tetsurou."

"I'd prefer to stay near home, though, so it's not that big of a deal… we have ways to get places quickly, sure, but we still have to account for a normal traveling time in most situations or it would look weird to anyone non-magical."

"The more options that are open, the better, though. And marrying in the non-magical world would let us keep more options open, even if people would think it odd since we're so young."

Tetsurou sighed. "But you actually want this? Marriage? A while ago you nearly went into shock at the thought."

"I was surprised, ok!" She frowned, looking back up at him. "And I've had a shift in my perspective a bit."

Tetsurou grinned at her. "I'll have to thank Bo."

"Kei-kun and Akaashi's talks helped a little, too."

"I'll thank Akaashi, as well, then."

Hermione laughed, shaking her head. "You're not going to thank Kei-kun?"

"As if—"

A sharp whistle cut through the air.

Hermione blushed, taking a step back before turning to see Kei approached with… the Johzenji boy? Kei hadn't told her that he had a date tonight!

As it was, her cousin was glaring at her, clearly annoyed by the position she'd been in, while… Terushima? Was grinning at them mischievously.

"Yo, cuz." Tetsurou waved unabashedly. Kei's scowl deepened.

Kei's date laughed, "Well aren't you two enjoying the evening. Don't mind us, I'd hate to interrupt."

"Why are you out here and not in the backyard or something?" Kei came to a stop a few feet away from them, his arms crossed.

Tetsurou shrugged, "Malfoy and the toddler are in the yard, and your parents are inside the house, so we had to make do."

"And that means making the whole neighborhood deal with your drama?"

Hermione blushed. She'd been so focused on dealing with her emotions that she hadn't really thought about where they'd been standing. "Sorry, I—" Hermione stopped as Tetsurou wound his arm around her shoulders.

"We didn't do anything, love. We were just talking."

Kei's eyebrow twitched. "Talking very close to each other."

She could feel Tetsurou shrug next to her, "Is that a crime?"

"Nope!" Terushima grinned up at Kei, "Think we could do some of that, ourselves?"

Kei stepped away from the older boy, "Don't push your luck."

"Aw, come on!" Terushima pouted, "I'm even being all gentlemanly and walking with you to your front door!"

Hermione smiled at his antics, "Did you two at least have a good time on your.. Um… date?"

"It wasn't a date."

"Totally was, beautiful. I paid, called you nicknames—"

"—Which I still object to—"

"—and now we're having a romantic stroll home under the stars."

"We are not." Kei groaned, "I don't know why I even agreed to get to know you better."

"Because you think I'm interesting." Terushima winked at Kei, who blushed and turned away with a muttered protest.

Hermione smiled at the two. It was good to see Kei getting along with someone besides his teammates, even if he was adamant that it wasn't a date.

"You're annoying, that's what you are." Kei blushed, looking away. "Just go. You have a long train ride and I should walk back with these two nuisances to make sure they don't stop in the middle of the street again."

"We weren't in the middle of the street!" Hermione huffed. The middle of the sidewalk, sure, but she'd never walk in the middle of the street. It just wasn't proper. Or safe.

Kei rolled his eyes, "Might as well have been, nee-san, for all the attention you were paying to anything else."

She blushed. They hadn't been that bad, had they?

Terushima gave a put upon sigh. "I suppose I'll head out, then. It was a lovely evening, Tsukki darling. I'll text you about our next meet-up."

Kei frowned, "You text too much."

"You know you don't mean that." Terushima grinned. "Otherwise you wouldn't reply." He spun on his heel, waving goodbye over his shoulders, "Later, losers!"

Hermione blinked at the abrupt departure. Terushima certainly was… a ball of energy, she supposed.

"Well, love, since we're obviously not welcome to take a walk in order to finish our conversation, what do you say we head back to the house?"

Hermione blushed, thinking back to the position they'd been in. At least they'd discussed the important topics. "That sounds fine. I… um, I still need to talk to you about some things, though." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear nervously.

"Oh?" Tetsurou turned toward the house, slipping his hand into hers as they began walking back, Kei sighing and trudging along behind them.

"About your birthday. And the potion."

"Ah." Tetsurou grinned, "You planning something special, Mio?"

She frowned, "That's just it!" She raised her free hand, waving it in frustration, "You have a tournament on the day of your birthday, and while I know the tournament schedule, I also know you'll probably need to rest, or do a celebratory meal with the team, or something like that. So I have no clue when to plan anything."

Tetsurou laughed. "We can just do something the weekend after, love. That's fine with me."

"You sure?" Hermione frowned, uncertain. Harry and Ron were always so particular about the actual day of their birthdays… but she supposed with Ron's large family, and with Harry's childhood, it made sense.

"Of course. Surprise me."

Behind them, Kei spoke up, "I'm not expected to go to anything for your birthday, right?"

"Tsukki! I'm hurt! We're family!" Tetsurou stepped back, looping an arm around Kei's cringing shoulders. "Of course you're invited. You can bring blondie, too, if you want."

"Hell no. Dealing with you is enough of a headache."

Tetsurou laughed, completely unfazed. When he wouldn't move his arm, though, Kei elbowed him in the ribs, forcing him to double over and free Kei from his grasp.

"Ugh." Tetsurou slowly straightened up, "Why did I get stuck with the mean kouhai? Hinata would never do that to Bo."

"You're the one that decided to be my senpai, so you'll have to answer that yourself. I wanted nothing to do with it."

Hermione smiled at the two as Tetsurou complained that he had been being nice. The two kept bickering all the way back to the tent, but before Kei could retreat inside she grabbed his wrist. "Kei-kun, would you do us a favor and watch after Teddy a bit so we can talk with Malfoy alone?"

Kei frowned, staring at her for a second before he sighed and nodded. "Fine." He disappeared into the tent, and Hermione's shoulders relaxed in relief.

"You want to talk to Malfoy now?"

"We never established when we're starting to work on occlumsency or how often he wants to come to Japan."

"Ah." Tetsurou rubbed at the back of his neck, then glanced over to meet her eyes. "Before we get into that, though—"

You really are sure you want to do this now? You actually want to get married?

Hermione blushed. It's like the handholding thing back at camp—I don't want to hide what we are to each other. I know that will be shocking to a lot of people, and you'll probably face more of that since you're more connected to the muggle world, so really I'm just being selfish—"

Mio, I can't be mad at you for wanting to show others how much you like me. You're terrible at remembering what's "proper" anyways—I don't know how many times you've called me by my first name in front of the team. At least you would have less to hide if we're actually married, but it's a big step.

We're soulmates, and we're already married in Japanese magical society.

Yeah, but that doesn't actually have to mean anything.

What should we tell people, though? It's not like we could use my country's traditions as an excuse because anyone could look up English marriage traditions and they wouldn't get marrying each other as teenagers.

Tetsurou ran a hand through his hair, sighing. We have a couple months to figure that out, I guess. I'm assuming you still want to push it back as far as possible and not get married like, tomorrow? He grinned at her.

Of course! Hermione frowned. Which means it would happen in March. Isn't that when you graduate?

Yes. And you'll have taken your NEWTS by that point, so we'll both be high school graduates and you'll have an actual job, at least.

That's good, but while you're in college your teammates will probably think—

We'll deal with that when in happens. Tetsurou pulled her into a hug, resting his chin on top of her hair. "We'll figure it out, ok? Just—"

Kei emerged from the tent and sighed when he saw them hugging again. "I can't leave you two alone, can I?"

"No one can even see us from the street, Kei-kun. The wall is too high."

"Still." He shifted Teddy in his arms, frowning as he looked down at the squealing toddler. "Try to be quick."

Hermione rolled her eyes, then grabbed Tetsurou's wrist and dragged him past her cousin. "I think the point of occlumsency is actually to take your time."

Kei groaned. "I am not good with kids."

Hermione wasn't too concerned. Despite his claims, Kei-kun had done fine with Teddy so far. She pushed the tent flap aside, ducking underneath it. "Malfoy?"

"I'm back here." He emerged from the room he'd been staying in, straightening a shirt. "The brat drooled all over my other shirt, so I took the opportunity to change."

"Scourgify exists for a reason, Malfoy."

"That is hardly the same." Malfoy sneered at her. "Anyway, your cousin said you wanted to talk?"

"Yes." Right. Straight to the point. "How often are you wanting to visit?" That was what really mattered, after all. If she asked about what schedule would be best for their training, he'd just make up reasons to suit his preferences, anyway.

"Every other week should be fine—I'll give you things to practice in between."

That sounded fairly reasonable… they could probably manage it on top of their current study load. "That's feasible."

"Lovely." Malfoy flicked his wrist, and Hermione's wand was in her hand almost as fast as his own. He sighed. "I'm just going to show you a spell to help with meditating, Granger."

She frowned, but didn't sheath her wand. "Go ahead then."

He rolled his eyes and held up his wand, tip pointed downward as he moved it in a slow circle first clockwise while he inhaled, then counter-clockwise as he exhaled. "That's the wand movement, so it's fairly simple. It's important to count to five slowly while you do it—the timing of the circle will be the exact same timing of the element. Your strength is water, correct?"

"Yes." Tetsurou's hand tightened around hers.

"Figured as much after that bloody ice dragon." He closed his eyes, then began to swirl his wand again, this time encanting, "Orbis aquae tempo."

A sphere of water flowed out from Malfoy's wand, constricting and expanding in time with the movement. After a full cycle, Malfoy stopped moving his wand and let his hand drop to his side, but the orb still hung in midair, twisting in the same perpetual tempo. "We'll focus on learning this spell today, then you can practice breathing in time with the water over the next two weeks. Your goal is to focus on the water while breathing. Eventually, you shouldn't even need the water externally because the image will be ingrained in your head as you breathe."

Tetsurou sighed next to her. "Joy. A spell. You want to be here all night?"

Malfoy's eyebrow twitched. "It's a simple one, and I used your element. You should be fine."

Hermione squeezed Tetsurou's hand reassuringly. "Think of it as stirring a potion."

"Not all spells are potions, Mio." Tetsurou glared sullenly at her, then reluctantly pulled out his wand from the seam of his shorts. Malfoy grimaced at its location. "Let's get this misery over with."

Hermione really hoped it didn't actually take them all night, but she would stay even if it did.

A/N: Thank you all for your sweet comments! I really appreciate all of them and they made me smile :D Sorry I've been gone so long, health stuff has been difficult and then I had some stressful irl events, but those are clear now! Well, health stuff is manageable and the irl stuff is clear :/ Anyway, I've returned again to this story! If you want to chat, come find me on tumblr at haruhi1020! I try to do weekly wip updates where I let ppl know what I'm working on and such. I also have a discord, so if you're interested in chatting about fics and/or anime dm me and I'll try to figure out how to get you a link! can be kind of finicky with those.

Also, I'm part of a group of fic writers who are creating fics for people who donate to blacklivesmatter and related causes, so if you are interested in that project and/or having a fic written for you, dm me for more info!