Chapter Text
Akko bounced on her heels with a massive smile plastered across her face, as she watched Lotte unlock the door to their new dorm room. They'd done it, they were finally second year students at the prestigious Luna Nova Academy. Well... Technically they became second years at the end of the last, when test scores were revealed, but that's not the same! Now, they got a new room to prove it. As the door swung into the room, Akko's breath hitched as she gazed inside, a sparkle seemed to manifest in her eyes as she looked through the open door. It was amazing! The dorm was bigger than their last one, with more than enough space for the three of them. They had a central living/studying area with a wooden table and chairs in the center, which sat on a blue rug with the Luna Nova Emblem prominently displayed on it. The emblem was a little more than just symbolic of the school as the three prongs of the emblem faced different wings of the dorm, their beds and personal study areas. Each 'bedroom' was made up of a bed, a dresser, an empty bookcase, and a small desk, they were fully visible to the rest of the room, unless of course, you drew the curtain. Akko looked around the room slack jawed as she took in every detail of it.
"Woah!" Akko exclaimed while running over to the middle room furthest from the door.
She grabbed the curtain and began dragging it closed then open a couple of times, before laughing to herself, and running over to the desk to pull the chair out and sit down. She bounced in her seat while her smile grew larger, before she hopped up again and ran to the window next to her bed. Akko swung the window open and looked out to see the familiar view of the campus. Swinging her arms into the air, the brunette released a cheerful 'yay' before spinning in place and flopping down onto the 'less stiff than her last' bed. After laughing giddily to herself for a few more moments, she shot up to a sitting position.
"I call this one!" The brunette shouted.
"Figured as much." Sucy droned out, "You were making all those weird noises again."
"They're not weird! They're excitement noises! Everyone makes them!" Akko shouted at the mauve-haired girl.
"Right." Sucy monotoned.
"Sucy." Lotte reprimanded.
"What? She was saying something stupid."
"Sucy!"
"Fine, I'll behave." Sucy relented.
"Haha you got yelled at!" Akko teased.
"Akko."
"Gomenasai!"
After unpacking and setting up their respective living spaces, the three red team members settled into Lotte's room to relax and hang out for the rest of the night. Sucy sat on the, now cushioned, desk chair while Lotte sat crisscross on her bed with Akko resting her head in the ginger's lap. Lotte was playing with, and combing her hands through, Akko's hair while she listened to Akko and Sucy argue over nothing for the fifth time since they entered her living space. She snorted softly as Akko very audibly growled at the mauve haired girl.
"Yeah well you're just stupid!" Akko shouted.
"Didn't know I took the crown from you, you can have it back if you want." Sucy teased.
"Hey!" Akko called back.
Lotte shook her head at their antics, and noticed they were done for now so she could get back to the topic they were on before the conversation devolved... Again.
"Anyways, as I was saying before I was interrupted..." Lotte began, before halting her playing with Akko's hair.
"Oh... Right... Sorry..." Akko apologized.
"Arthur, Belle, and Edgar went on their first date together and they were trying to figure out who got to hold whose hand and who had to sit out this time when Belle-" Lotte explained.
"Wait... Arthur's the gay one right?" Akko asked.
"No, because of the way his past was, and how his feelings seemed to be developing, he realized he was pan." Lotte answered.
"So is Edgar-"
"No he's bi. Seriously Akko do you even listen, we even talked about this before you two started arguing again." Lotte reprimanded.
"Is that what we were fighting over?"
"Not really, but close enough." Sucy said.
"Okay, okay, but which one was the gay one?" Akko asked.
"I think you're thinking of Arthur's twin brother, a few novels before this one she confused him for Arthur and kissed him which led to the 'Does He Even Love Me?' arc." Lotte explained.
"Oh! Right, I remember now." Akko lied.
Lotte rolled her eyes playfully before returning to stroking Akko's hair.
"Anyways, the date went off without a hitch and Belle was able to convince her boyfriends that she 'had two hands' and was able to hold both of theirs while they walked home together."
"Wait, so they're both her boyfriends at the same time?" Akko asked.
"Yeah."
"Huh, how does that work?"
"Wait, you didn't know they were both her boyfriends?" Lotte asked.
"No I knew that, I just thought I missed something about them trading off, like, taking turns or whatever... How can they both be her boyfriends at the same time?"
"I haven't explained polyamory to you yet?"
"Poly what now?"
"Polyamory." Lotte began, "It literally means multi-love, or in terms most people use it, it describes a relationship between more than one person."
"Uh... Can you use it in a sentence?"
"Okay, well, 'Edgar, Belle, and Arthur are polyamorous, they believe in dating more than one person'." Lotte explained.
"Makes a little more sense, but like... How does that even work? Are you sure they don't trade who's whose boyfriend or girlfriend?" Akko asked.
"Are you just confused how one person can love more than one person, or..."
"Yes!" Akko exclaimed.
"Well, uh... Hm... Think of it like this," Lotte started, "Everyone has a storage of love they can give, some of that love is familial in nature and some of that love is romantic in nature."
"Okay..."
"Now, everyone's storage is different, some people have no romantic love in their storage, like aromantics, some people have only enough romantic love for one person, the typical couple, and some people, polyamorous people that is, have a larger supply of romantic love." Lotte furthered
"So they can give out more?" Akko questioned.
"Exactly!"
"So how does a relationship like this work?"
"Well it could work in many ways, right now the relationship between Bell, Arthur, and Edgar is centered around Belle, meaning Arthur and Edgar only have one significant other, while Belle has two. There was another relationship earlier on in the series where there were five people all dating one another, meaning each person had four significant others." Lotte explained.
"I'm following." Akko said while nodding.
"So it can be as simple as one person dates two people, but the other two only date that one person, and as complex as, say, ten people all dating one another.
"Okay... But how does-"
"She doesn't understand how dating two people at once could work." Sucy cut Akko off.
"Oh!" Lotte exclaimed.
"Yeah... What Sucy said..." Akko chuckled embarrassedly.
"Okay, I don't really know how to tell you exactly how it works, all I can say is, well... It kinda just does work."
"Helpful." Sucy droned.
"Sucy!" Lotte shouted.
"I think I get it, some people have more than enough love for more than one person, and they are somehow able to get into a relationship with more than one person, and it somehow works."
"It doesn't sound like she gets it." Sucy drawled.
"Sucy!" Lotte shouted again.
"Right... Sorry..."
"But yeah..." Lotte began, "You're right, it all just, somehow works."
Everyone was silent for a minute to let Akko soak in what she just heard, before she perked up and laughed a little.
"Man! Imagine being lucky enough to have multiple people like you..." Akko began, "I mean, I'm lucky enough to have just one, and she's the cutest girl in the whole world!"
"Bias." Sucy muttered.
"Speaking of Constanze, do you think she's unpacked yet? I want to spend time with her!"
"She's your girlfriend, ask her."
"I don't want to bug her so late at night..." Akko mumbled.
"It is eight, curfew for second years is not 'til ten. Go get her." Sucy explained.
"Wait it's only eight?" Akko exclaimed while throwing herself to her feet.
The brunette raced to her room to put on some slippers, before running to the door and opening it.
"I'll be back later, see you guys!"
With that, she slammed the door shut, and her teammates were left there sitting and listening to her running down the hall. Sucy was the first to turn away from the door.
"How long do think it'll take her to find out the green team's dorm is in the other direction?" Sucy asked.
"I hope it doesn't take her too long, but I'll buy lunch if it's more than thirty minutes." Lotte sighed.
"I guess I'll put my money on an hour."
"You have no faith in her do you?" Lotte asked.
Sucy blinked a couple times at the ginger.
"She said 'I'm lucky enough to have just one person like me'." Sucy deadpanned.
It took a moment, but Lotte flushed when she realized what the other girl was alluding to.
"Sucy..." The ginger pouted.
Twenty minutes later, Akko found the new green team dorm room.
"Yo Conz! Your girl's here!" Amanda shouted toward one of the drawn curtains while letting Akko in.
Akko looked around and saw that the green team's room was a nearly identical looking room to the red team's, with the only differences being that of personal belongings being strewn about here and there.
"She's upset about the new rooms." Amanda said while she leaned against the table.
"Why would she be upset? The new rooms are so much bigger than the last ones?"
"Her lab." Amanda said simply.
"Oh."
"Yeah, she's in there planning out a new tunnel to get to it, so she might be a minute if she's in the middle of drawing." Amanda revealed.
"Makes sense." Akko began, "Well, what do you think of the new room?"
"It's better than the last, but now I don't have my old sneak-out routes to use..." Amanda complained.
"Ah man, I completely forgot about the sneak-out routes!" Akko exclaimed.
"I know right! Now we're gonna have to risk getting busted 'til we find the best one's from here!"
The two were about to continue, when finally the privacy curtain to Constanze's room opened.
"Constanze!" Akko shouted, while charging at the little bluenette.
Constanze's face lit up at the sight of her girlfriend and a soft smile spread across her face as she was hoisted into the air and spun around in a crushing bear hug.
"Gross." Amanda teased before heading off to her room. "If you need me, I'll be over here. Make sure to knock."
"See ya!" Akko called out to the redhead while she put Constanze down.
Constanze grabbed Akko by the hand and led her into her room, before once again pulling the privacy curtain shut. Akko flopped down onto the bluenette's bed, rolled onto her side and rested her gaze on her girlfriend.
"I heard you were working on a new tunnel?" Akko asked.
Constanze perked up at this and went to grab her sketchbook off her desk. In the meantime, Akko rolled underneath the covers and brought a pillow closer to the middle of the bed so the two of them could lay down together, propped up on the pillow to look at the shorter girl's work. When they were both comfy, Constanze began by pointing at the diagram of the room.
"So we're here?" Akko said while pointing at the bed she thought was Constanze's on the drawing.
The bluenette nodded then wrote in a little notebook, "Yep. And just like in the old dorm, the tunnel will go under the bed."
"Ooh! Sugoi! I loved how the old bed would flip over and drop you into the tunnel!" Akko exclaimed.
Constanze smiled and leaned against Akko while flipping the sketchbook's page over to the next. Drawn here was a map of the school with two connection points on the floor they're currently on heading down to the floor the old dorms were.
"What's going on here?" Akko asked.
Constanze pointed at the tunnel that came from the left side of the paper and drug her finger across the paper to where the other tunnel met it, she then grabbed her pencil and wrote out, "We start there, and the new tunnel will head to the middle point, before dropping into the old tunnel systems."
"Nice! Why build brand new tunnels, when the old one's already exist?" Akko reasoned, then thought for a second, "Now, what about this tunnel?"
Constanze watched as the brunette pointed at the tunnel heading down from the top of the page before smiling and writing out, "It's. A. Secret." in big letters in the notebook.
"Mou! C'mon you can tell me!"
"Nope."
"Please?" Akko asked, bringing out her best puppy dog eyes, and leaning into the bluenette's line of sight.
"You cannot tempt me demoness." Constanze wrote.
"Oh you think I'm a demon?" Akko asked, while whipping out her wand. "I'll show you a demon! Metamorphie Faciesse!"
In a puff of smoke Akko gained a pair of horns, a couple of small, bat-like wings, and a thin tail with a spade at the end.
"This is the power of a true demon!" Akko exclaimed, then dove onto her girlfriend to tickle the answer out of her.
As Akko attacked Constanze, the bluenette laughed through her nose like every time they devolved into this.
"Tell me! Your demoness commands you!" Akko joked while relenting for a moment.
Constanze grabbed her notebook and wrote out "NEVER!!!"
"Then you only have yourself to blame." Akko threatened, before going for round two.
It was too late though, in the time Akko had spoke, Constanze had already rolled out of the way, and off the bed.
"Wha-" Akko began, before she was tackled back onto the bed by Constanze who returned the attack ten fold.
"Gomen! Gomen! Please! I relent! I'm sorry!" Akko called out in between laughs.
At that, Constanze stopped, narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms.
"Okay, okay! I'm sorry, it won't happen again!" Akko apologized while reversing her transformation.
Constanze smiled at her girlfriend before flopping down onto her, and wrapping her arms around the brunette.
"I love you too." Akko said, while wrapping her arms around the shorter girl and rolling onto her side.
The two laid together in a brief silence before Constanze summoned up the nerves to give her girlfriend a peck on the lips. Akko was taken aback for a second, but responded by kissing the bluenette on the forehead.
"Goodnight..."
"Mm..."