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01.
“You can find her outside the science building,” Akaashi says between coughs.
Sickness doesn’t suit her well: Akaashi is still in the same sweatpants she was wearing yesterday, eyes-red-rimmed, nose pink from its new and high-energy friendship with the box of tissues beside her bed. Despite her cold, she’s glaring at the screen of her laptop, baleful and sniffling, as she scrolls down lines of code and embedded images on the fashion blog that’s supposed to be her year-end project for some web design class.
“Her name’s Kuroo,” she says, jabbing at a high-res photo of a leggy brunette who seems like she’s cornered the market on effortless-edgy-pretty. “Once you get past the shitty jokes she’s not bad—just make sure you get around 20 shots. You’ll do fine.”
Daichi tightens her careful grip on the entirely-too-expensive camera in her hands and nods. “Okay,” she says. “I can do that.”
Akaashi gives Daichi a watery grin as she waves her off, and Daichi leaves with the feeling that she had, somehow, just gotten more than she’d bargained for by agreeing to help a friend with a project.
—
Daichi does find Kuroo outside the science building, reading a book whose cover is some terrifying attempt at abstract art, two days later on a wind-chilled Thursday afternoon.
She's got on a tank top, unseasonable and near-sheer, jeans that fit skintight where they don't fray, and last night's makeup cleverly disguised as smoky eyeshadow. She sort of looks like she'd crawled out of bed and through her closet right before coming to class; she also looks like she'd fit perfectly at the top of a fashion column, if only she could stop yawning long enough to make a decent face.
When Daichi clears her throat, Kuroo jumps, swallows her yawn, and makes a poorly concerted effort to look like she hadn't been dozing off in a sunny spot between classes. Daichi doesn't give her the chance to recover; instead she offers her hand and says, "Sawamura. I'm here for the, ah…fashion blog.”
The words feel lace-thin in her mouth, awkward and ill-fitted, and the smile she puts on to make up for it is maybe a little too bright. Kuroo doesn't seem to notice, though; she stands (and isn't it absolutely lovely that Daichi has to look up at her), takes Daichi's hand in hers, and shakes it with a firmness not belied by the slender length of her fingers. "I'm Kuroo--though if you know where to find me, you probably know that. How may I be of service?"
Half snark, half tease, bound together by misleading layers of charm; Daichi withdraws her hand, tries not to frown up at Kuroo's maroon smirk.
"I'm supposed to take pictures," Daichi says, gesturing with the camera on its lanyard around her neck.
"Oh, right." Kuroo's elbows cut sharp angles against the sky as she cajoles her hair into something like a ponytail, and the arch to her back as she works stray strands through a bright red hair tie means her breasts push up against the impractically thin fabric of her tank. "You're filling in for Akaashi, yeah?"
In that moment, Daichi learns two things about Kuroo.
The first: she is, apparently, none too fond of bras.
The second: though she may not be fond of bras, she is fond of piercings.
Daichi swallows, finds dark eyes beneath perfectly arched brows, and says, "Yeah."
Kuroo puts her hands on her hips and grins. "Maybe you'll make better conversation than she does."
Because that’s just the way the world works, Daichi has nothing clever to say to that; instead she hefts the camera and waves it in Kuroo’s direction, hoping this whole ordeal won’t be as awkward as she feels it will be. “So where do you usually do this?”
“Well,” Kuroo says, tapping at her chin with nails painted deep perfect purple, “Akaashi’s got some sort of ‘artistic vision’—or that’s what she tells me, anyway. But we usually take pictures out behind one of the buildings. Apparently that’s where the atmosphere is.”
“Okay,” Daichi says with a measure of caution. “Show me.”
Kuroo takes Daichi out behind one of the science buildings
It’s got a certain sort of aesthetic appeal, Daichi supposes: the wall is that selfless and unassuming shade of white so well-loved by boastful colors, and the light is quiet and cooperative. Kuroo is angular and lovely, leaning up against the wall, ankles crossed and shoulders sunk into an artful slouch, hips sharp and well-loved by the camera lens as Daichi tries to focus it the way Akaashi had told her.
“We usually take around twenty pictures, I think,” Kuroo calls after a moment. “D’you need help? I know my way around the camera pretty well.”
Daichi, who had gotten caught up on the delicate point of Kuroo’s chin and the grace of her neck, wishes she could focus herself like she does the lens: easily, mechanically, the adjustment almost unnoticeable but for a few small movements. But Daichi is human, and her focus—or lack thereof—is plainly visible as she blushes, shakes her head clear, and coughs before saying, “No, I think I got it, thanks.”
“Okay,” Kuroo says, and tosses her head, runs her fingers through it, gives Daichi—gives the camera—a low-lidded look that makes Daichi’s fingers quiver on the lens barrel. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Daichi would probably be ready for anything Kuroo asked if only she said it with that lovely garnet grin on her lips, but she doesn’t say that. Instead she lifts the camera in front of her face—hopes it’ll conceal the blush welling up there again—and says, “Ready.”
Between Kuroo’s tendency to make weird faces every five takes and Daichi’s intermittent technological difficulties, it takes about half an hour for them to finish up. By the time they’re done, the light has shifted, and Kuroo steps out of low-slung ropes of it to cross the worn concrete distance between them, her smile day’s-end gold when she directs it towards Daichi.
“Did you get what you need?”
What a loaded question that is (and is she just imagining the insinuation in Kuroo’s voice?), especially when Kuroo poses it with that tone in her voice, the one that scrapes low and sends little thrilling waves rolling through Daichi’s stomach.
“Yeah,” Daichi says, because she did get what she needed, objectively, but she thinks she might’ve gotten a little more than she bargained for, too. “I did. Thank you.”
“I’ll see you around,” Kuroo says, with a wink and a wave, and the sparkle in her eyes makes Daichi’s heart flutter.
02.
“You’re in this class too?”
That’s the third time this week.
Daichi turns in her seat and looks up at Kuroo, who’s blinking down at her, surprised. She sighs and says, “Yeah, but I already knew you were in this class.”
“You did?” Kuroo makes an offended face, like she can’t believe Daichi wouldn’t have said anything to her, even though they’d only really just started talking this week, after the impromptu photography session. “Well, you’re all the way in the back. No wonder I didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah, well.”
Kuroo takes the flatness of her tone as an invitation to sit; Daichi rolls her eyes, but clears her things from underneath Kuroo’s scuffed-up black boots anyway. She’s learning that—where Kuroo’s concerned, anyway—it’s easier to roll with the punches than to put up a fight.
Daichi is busy rearranging her backpack under her feet when Kuroo leans in, lips so close she just might leave a red-velvet smudge on the shell of Daichi’s ear, and says, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
A shiver runs through Daichi like a hot knife through soft butter, starting somewhere in the pit of her stomach and ending up high in the quick flatline of her lips; she jumps, though she’d never admit it, and snaps around to give Kuroo the best glare she can muster up.
The glare falls short: Kuroo laughs, leans back in her chair, kicks one leg up over the other as she gets comfortable. Her legs are so /long/—lean, more muscular than they seem at first glance—and Daichi wonders if Kuroo knows how good she looks in that skirt, if she ever wears tights, if her skin would be as soft under Daichi’s mouth as it looks like it would be under her fingertips.
Daichi needs a cup of coffee. Or a breath of fresh air. Or a splash of cold water to the face, maybe—something, /anything/, to make her stop staring at Kuroo’s legs like she’d completely lost the plot.
“You alright?”
This is maybe the first time Daichi’s been truly grateful for that compelling note hidden in the lower tones of Kuroo’s voice; she snaps her attention upwards, meets amused dark eyes underneath low lashes, and clears her throat. “Yeah, I’m just….uh. Tired.”
Kuroo checks the chunky watch on her left wrist. It’s half past noon. Daichi’s cheeks darken. “Midday crash?”
Smooth. “Sure.”
Kuroo nods like she understands, though Daichi’s not sure if she’s ever had a class that required her to get up before eleven. She rakes a hand through her hair, glances up to the front of the room, recrosses her legs, says, “I bet a good cup of coffee would do you wonders.”
“Probably.” Daichi relaxes into her chair, hopes she’d played off her distraction well enough that Kuroo hadn’t noticed. “I don’t think I’ve had good coffee in months, though. The cafe near campus is…disappointing.”
Daichi hadn’t known it was possible to burn coffee; the memory of it is a little upsetting. She trails off, frowns.
“I know a place,” Kuroo says, light. Her concise vagueness earns her nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a skeptical look; when Daichi chooses not to inquire further, Kuroo takes it upon herself to elaborate. “It’s a ways from campus, but the coffee is good. Real coffee. I stayed awake for almost two days on that stuff.”
“Wh—no, never mind, I don’t want to know why.” Daichi shakes her head, reaches for the cup Kuroo’d put down when she sat. She figures it can’t be that bad if Kuroo’s drinking it, and besides, what’s left of Kuroo’s drink is still warm; Daichi sniffs it, finds nothing overwhelmingly objectionable, and takes a sip.
And—okay, that is well and truly objectionable: the coffee is stale, watery and bitter, and it would probably be worse—if that’s even possible—if not for the disgusting amount of sugar at the bottom.
“Oh my god,” Daichi chokes. It’s a true challenge to make herself swallow it down, but she does anyway, because she refuses to embarrass herself like that in public. “How have you been drinking this?”
“I usually stop drinking it before it cools down enough that I can taste it,” Kuroo says, dry, lifting an eyebrow. “Like I said, a good cup of coffee would be great.”
That cup of vaguely milk-flavored abomination is enough to convince Daichi beyond any shade of a doubt. “Okay. Where’s this ‘place’?”
Kuroo, chin in hand, grins across the table. “I’ll take you after class if you’re free. My treat, y’know, just in case you don’t like it.”
Daichi knows she should probably be a good deal more skeptical about this proposition than she is, given that, in the few months they’ve known each other, Kuroo has proven herself to have a clever and vexing propensity for mischief-making—but Kuroo’s just smiling at her, sincere and sweet, and Daichi thinks: well, why not?
“Alright.” Daichi is definitely gratified by the way Kuroo’s eyes go a little wide when she agrees; there’s something about catching Kuroo off-guard that is proving to be very satisfying. “After class.”
It takes a moment--but Kuroo blinks, shakes herself out of stillness. When she does, she flashes Daichi a winsome smile and says, determined in a way that can’t possibly mean anything good, “Awesome.”
03.
Kuroo isn’t much one for the library. It’s not that she dislikes the implied quiet of it the way Bokuto does, or that she hates the fact that nearly every quiet corner is also ten degrees colder than the rest of the building, which is Akaashi’s main complaint. It’s just that she can’t curl up the way she likes to when she needs to be still for hours at a time, and, more often than not, she ends up having to get up and walk around every forty minutes or so, because the wooden chairs in the library are absolutely unforgiving.
Kuroo isn’t much one for the library; but Sawamura is, and that’s why Kuroo is folded haphazard into a stiff-backed chair at half past eight on a Thursday night.
She’s in the shallows of her biology homework, drumming out an energetic rhythm against the tabletop in time with the J-Pop leaking in through her headphones. It’s something she’s heard a few times on the radio before, something sparkly-poppy and loud as hell, steadily racking up plays as Kuroo rewinds the song again. She might as well give up the ghost now and just put it on repeat—or she could watch the music video. Maybe that’d help her get it out of her head.
Her hands are otherwise occupied as Kuroo rifles through her backpack for her laptop, so she settles for bouncing her leg to the beat of the song instead. A little hard to do, since the length of her legs means her knee keeps knocking against the underside of the table, but the beat is so catchy—
A knock on the tabletop, loud enough to be heard over the music, jolts Kuroo out of her search. She looks underneath the table—reorients herself—looks across a mess of books and papers at the only other occupant.
“What?” Kuroo says, squinting at the tail end of Sawamura’s sentence. “Say that again.”
Sawamura scowls and makes a very clear /take out the damn headphones/ gesture.
“No, I can lip-read, you just have to get close enough—“
Kuroo can read the oh my god that falls from Sawamura’s lips just fine, but when she looks away from their still-full downward pucker she catches the full weight of Sawamura’s glare. That’s a no-nonsense look if Kuroo’s ever seen one; she grins, says, “Alright, fine,” and pulls her earbuds out.
Well, she tries, anyway. The earbuds come out of her ears without catching on any of her piercings, but the rubber-coated cords have managed to tangle themselves in impressive knots in her hair as if purely to ensure that Kuroo doesn’t look too cool in front of Sawamura. Which isn’t really a feat, considering that she’d only just managed to wrangle this farce of a study date—and can it really even be called a date if Sawamura only talks to Kuroo when she’s taking breaks?—and that she’d practically given herself a face cramp trying not to grin like an idiot earlier when Sawamura had given her a genuine smile. So, no, it’s not like Sawamura thinks Kuroo is particularly cool to begin with, but this is definitely a setback.
Kuroo sighs, heavy and only a little embarrassed, and wonders how long it’ll take for Sawamura to let her live this one down.
Amusement turns Sawamura’s frown into a budding smile; she watches Kuroo struggle and swear under her breath for a good minute—how cruel—before she laughs and uncurls herself from her study slouch. “Hold still,” she says, leaning across the table. “Let me get help.”
And it’s not like Kuroo can say no—it would take her ages to get the damn things untangled from her hair otherwise—but like this Sawamura’s face is so close, full-cheeked and clear, and she smells so nice, like faint fragrant soap and leftover sunshine and outdoors air, and Kuroo can kind of see down her shirt, and maybe she should’ve just yanked the headphones out herself, regardless of potential hair loss.
By the time Kuroo opens her mouth to stutter out a protest, though, Sawamura’s hands are already in her hair. Her fingers are surprisingly gentle, and each touch is careful; she cards through Kuroo’s hair with a delicacy Kuroo hadn’t thought her capable of wielding, working free first the left earbud and then, with only a bit more difficulty, the right.
“You should wear your hair up,” Sawamura says. She tucks a lock of hair behind Kuroo’s ear, absent, sweeps the rest of it behind Kuroo’s shoulders and nods her approval. “Then you won’t have to worry about this sort of thing.”
“Uh,” Kuroo says, because she’s gone warm and witless from the pseudo-petting and the proximity alike, “yeah, that’s an idea—a good one. Good idea.”
Sawamura sits back in her seat, brows drawing down as she catches sight of the flush rising on Kuroo’s cheeks. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” Kuroo says, a touch too quick. “Just, uh. Hot.”
“I knew all that coffee couldn’t be good for you.” Sawamura says with a click of her tongue as she reaches across the table and pulls Kuroo’s half-full cup out of range.
Kuroo knows she should be irritated about that, probably, but Sawamura’s still got that look on her face—the concerned one, furrowed brows and the slight tuck to her bottom lip that Kuroo knows by now means she’s preoccupied with something—and Kuroo can’t bring herself to say no, it’s not the coffee, it’s you. Partly because she doesn’t want to get kicked under the table, and partly because Sawamura’s kind of cute when she’s fussing. Not that Kuroo would ever tell her that.
“Whatever you say,” Kuroo acquiesces, and puts her head down on the desk to hide her smile.
04.
Laundry days have never been Kuroo’s favorite.
Laundry day means three hours wasted waiting on washing and drying cycles; it means having to put up with that weird laundry-room smell and other people’s dubiously clean clothes; it means, more often than not, that Kuroo ends up getting nothing done for the rest of the night, because doing a week and a half’s worth of laundry all at once is enough work for one evening, really.
Today, though—today is different. Today, laundry day means that when Kuroo yawns her way into the room just after dinner, she sees Sawamura, back turned, shaking shirts apart from each other as she sorts her dirty clothes.
Sawamura is—she’s gorgeous, really. Kuroo doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone who had the nerve to look so thoughtlessly good in laundry-day attire. Even in worn navy sweatpants her ass looks incredible, and the tank top she’s wearing clings to the soft lines of her waist where it tucks in tight before following the flare of her ribs, laying bare the muscle and breadth of her shoulders. Her hair—longer now than it had been the last time Kuroo saw her—is rushed up into a haphazard bun on top of her head, and Kuroo can’t help but notice the curls that had missed the cut at the base of her neck, gone wispy and loose in the artificial humidity.
She’s compact and lovely, even sweating slightly in the laundry room heat. Kuroo thinks it’s unfair.
“Hey,” she says, because she does have manners, thank you very much. “Haven’t seen you around in a while, Sawamura.”
Sawamura, startled, drops a handful of unmentionables and whips around wide-eyed. Kuroo makes a truly valiant effort not to laugh, she really does, but—
“Sorry,” Kuroo says, plainly amused and almost wholly insincere. “I didn’t think you were the type to scare easy.”
A blush like sunset sinks into Sawamura’s cheeks; she turns her back on Kuroo, resolute, and lifts her chin even though Kuroo can’t see her face. “I’m not,” she maintains, throwing a sock into the washing machine. “I just didn’t expect anyone to sneak up on me in the middle of doing my laundry. Most people would make themselves known instead of trying to scare someone, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, well,” Kuroo begins. She stops immediately thereafter, though, because Sawamura bends to pick up the clothes she’d dropped and Kuroo’s train of thought goes completely off the tracks.
It’s not just the view—though Kuroo does wonder how many squats Sawamura has to do in the gym to make her ass look like that—it’s the fact that when her sweats ride low, something colorful and overwhelmingly lacy peeks over the waistband.
In some dim and unimportant corner of her mind, Kuroo registers that yes, she is sort of staring, and that it would doubtlessly be bad if she got caught, but she can’t help it; the way the lace stretches across Sawamura’s hips is nothing short of mesmerizing, as is the tan of her skin against the pale blue fabric and the fact that when she straightens up she’s got dimples just below the small of her back, oh, god--
A loud cough draws Kuroo’s attention back upwards. When she refocuses, she finds Sawamura with her arms crossed just below her breasts, gracing Kuroo with a look that’s half-question, half-glare.
Kuroo tears herself away from the new discovery that Sawamura isn’t wearing a bra (is every laundry day like this, and would that be heaven or hell?), shoves a conversationally appropriate smile onto her face, and hopes she doesn’t look as wound up as she feels when she says the first thing that comes to mind.
“Cute underwear.”
Sawamura blinks.
Kuroo contemplates the likelihood of salvaging this situation; and, fail that, the viability of transferring to a new university within the next few days.
“Thanks,” Sawamura says, slow, lifting the most judgmental brow Kuroo’s ever seen. “I think.”
“Yeah, totally.” Kuroo is going to get back into bed and not come out for a very long time.
Sawamura’s gaze lingers heavy on Kuroo for a moment more before she shrugs and turns away. “Are you actually doing laundry, or do you just hang around here for the hell of it?”
She’d meant to come transfer her laundry over into the dryer, not to be hopelessly distracted by each and every one of Sawamura’s curves—though it seems the latter is a bit of a lost cause by now. “Of course I’m doing laundry. Why else would I be here? I’ll have you know I’m very busy.”
Sawamura offers nothing more than a snort and the hint of a smirk over her shoulder. Kuroo huffs and busies herself with her own laundry, though it’s likely they both know she’s only half concentrating on the task.
There’s a hollow plunk somewhere over Kuroo’s shoulder, followed by the same tone again in a heavier note. Sawamura is sitting atop the washing machine now, legs crossed at the ankle, faking busy with her phone—and Kuroo can tell she’s faking, because she’s repeating the same aimless flicking motion with her thumb over and over and over, too fast to be reading anything of import. Sort of (and here Kuroo’s heart does this complicated maneuver and ends up tangled in her lungs) like she’s waiting for Kuroo to say something.
Kuroo’s always been one to take opportunity where it presents itself, if she thinks it’s worth the risk and the effort and the time, and she’s almost sure that Sawamura, with her small steady hands and lightning-flash smile and peculiar unassuming slyness, is worth the risk.
Kuroo manages not to shut her hair in the dryer door as she closes it, leans against the warm and shaking metal, and says, “Come here often?”
Sawamura’s quick to darken the screen of her phone—a-ha—though she turns to Kuroo slowly, with brows already raised, expression caught somewhere between amusement and skepticism. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Well, then…once a week, if I’m lucky.”
Kuroo takes a breath, hopes her smile is as coy and playful as she thinks it is. “So could I buy you a cycle sometime?”
Sawamura laughs, and the sound of it is heady and full, rolling down Kuroo’s spine like a warm summer breeze. “Please tell me you’re not always this bad at flirting.”
“Only with girls who’re as cute as you.” Kuroo’s cheeks are on fire, and she’s probably dug herself a comfortable six-foot-deep hole, but there’s something about the mortified amusement gathering in the breadth of Sawamura’s smile that makes her throw sensibility to the wind. “So no, I’m usually not this bad—hey, that was pretty smooth, though, you have to admit. Who wouldn’t want a free cycle?”
That earns her a disbelieving snort, though Sawamura’s cheeks are just as red as Kuroo’s own. “It’s tempting,” she says, “but I think most people would’ve just asked me out for lunch or something.”
“Well,” Kuroo says, and waves goodbye to the last of her daily allotted amount of self-respect, “I’m not most people—“
“Oh my god,” Sawamura says. She puts one hand over her face and holds out the other in a gesture equal parts prohibiting and placating. “Please, stop. Just ask me out to lunch.”
“So you do want to go to lunch with me?”
A flash of big brown eyes between parted fingers, a gesture so wholly juvenile that Kuroo forgets Sawamura is probably one of the most self-possessed people she knows. Through the caught-out twist to her lips, Sawamura says, “I’d rather flirt with you over food than over dirty clothes.”
“Oh,” Kuroo says; and then, when she realizes that means Sawamura’s saying yes, she says again, brighter, “Oh!”
Sawamura shakes her head, rolls her eyes, drops her hands to her lap. She unlocks her phone and extends it like an olive branch. “I don’t know if I still have your number from that group project. You can put it in again if it isn’t there.”
Kuroo’s number is in her phone; but it’s listed formally: last name first name ten digit sequence, nothing to distinguish it at all from any other contact. Under the pretense of adding her number for the very first time, Kuroo gives herself an emoji (she considers changing her name to something cutesy, but decides against it—the emoji is already pushing it pretty far) before handing the phone back.
Sawamura looks at the emoji and shakes her head again, but she doesn’t delete it. She shuts her phone off, slips it into her pocket, and says, “You could call if you want. I’m free this weekend, if you were serious about lunch.”
She gives Kuroo a that’s-that nod, slides off the washing machine, and strides out of the laundry room, hamper on hip and step confident.
Kuroo watches her go, wondering if Sawamura likes mackerel—kind of hoping she does—, and, with an enthusiastic little pump of her fist, clears her Saturday evening plans.