Archive of Our Own ^beta

'Bokuto-san, I must be honest here— I did not envision our second date going like this.'

Count Dracula has this one thing he does to be even bigger of an asshole than he normally is. First of all, that in itself should be fucking impossible to do, but Koutarou's accepted by now that Count Dracula is seldom restricted by the chains that bind mere mortals. And so, he has this one thing he does to be even bigger of an asshole than he normally is: sometimes, there are occasions when Kenma is obliged to bathe him because the shitty little fuck won't do it himself— and of course, he's rarely happy about it. Count Dracula, he means, not Kenma. Although Kenma's rarely happy about it either.

Anyway, on a long, long list of shit that pisses Count Dracula off, baths probably hold spot number one. If Kenma and Kuroo survive the hour-long hissy fit that the thing throws upon realising that he's about to be hit with liquid that isn't his own spit, they pretty much know what's coming once he's out of the bath. The cat will, without fail, walk haughtily out of the bathroom, dripping wet and angry beyond normal violence, and with very deliberate and vindictive precision, take a shit on Kenma's carpet.

Now, that in itself would've been bad enough, but Count Dracula precedes this shit-taking with this blank kind of stare right into Kenma's eyes. He will look Kenma dead in the eye before, during, and after taking his revenge shit on Kenma's carpet. It's a bone-chilling experience.

What is more bone-chilling is the memory of that stare outside the context of shitting. It wakes Koutarou up at night sometimes, but he thinks he might find reprieve from that particular feline's face, because he is actually currently on the receiving end of that stare from an entirely different living creature altogether (although one might argue that his similarities to members of the cat family are striking).

That is: his best friend, Kuroo Tetsurou, is staring at him with that same I’m about to take a shit on your carpet look right now.

He is so onto Koutarou. He's been looking right at Koutarou for the better half of five minutes now. He knows.

'He knows,' Koutarou whispers. 'He totally knows.'

Akaashi sighs and lowers his menu. 'Perhaps Kuroo-san would be less suspicious of your blatant stalking if you were to stop staring back at him.'

Koutarou considers this— while still looking at Kuroo, whose eyes are narrowed now— and then realises that Akaashi is correct. Breaking eye contact, he turns to look at Akaashi instead, and regrets it; in those brief minutes of playing out a Contra boss battle in gazes with Kuroo, he'd forgotten what Akaashi is wearing today.

First of all, literally nobody asked Akaashi to put on leather. Koutarou, personally, doesn't recall a single human being saying yeah, Akaashi should totally wear leather, it'll be cool, man. Because it's not. It's not fucking cool. His open leather jacket is not cool, just as much as the white T-shirt he's wearing under it with a neck so loose that Koutarou can basically see his fucking soul when Akaashi leans forward. None of this is what Koutarou wanted in his life, and honestly, he doesn't see why he should put up with this shit. It's right there as a sub-point on the God of Disc Jockeying Akaashi Keiji point of Things That Fuck All My Shit Up.

But then Akaashi smiles, and Koutarou is immediately provided with, like, one thousand reasons to put up with this shit. Akaashi's smile makes one of his eyes narrow a little more than the other. One thousand and three reasons.

'I was saying,' Akaashi says, and Koutarou has no idea what he was saying but he could be talking about the fucking origins of tonic water and Koutarou would still think he's the proverbial dude who polishes the moon every night. 'That I did not envision our second date going like this.'

'Oh,' Koutarou says. 'That. This is true. I.'

It's not like he doesn't know this is a date. He does. It's also not like he's made any progress in refining his behaviour in front of the the most glorious human being he's ever seen. He's not. And yet, for some or the other reason (maybe because they're at Le Petit Spaghetti which is basically Home Base Number Two) he isn't as shit scared around Akaashi as he was last week. And that's saying something, because last week he'd fucking tripped and fallen on his face in front of Akaashi while entering into the living room from Sawamura's balcony.

He thinks it might also have something to do with the fact that for the next he-doesn't-know-what-time-period, his brain is basically going to be buzzing around that tiny slideshow of images that Akaashi led him through, also last week. That fucking sequence between Tsukki and Kuroo might just be the most incredible thing he's seen all year, apart from Akaashi's face. Maybe he's just too distracted by that incredibleness to have to consciously focus on not saying useless shit to Akaashi. He's not sure whether that's good or bad.

'How about this,' Akaashi says, and Koutarou blinks and clears his throat, raises his eyebrows. 'We'll finish our coffees and take a walk?'

'A walk?' Koutarou frowns. 'Of course, why not, but I mean—'

Then Akaashi smiles again, and this time Koutarou's re-oriented enough into the conversation to lose his fucking shit about that smile all over again.

'Not that I dislike Kuroo-san,' he says, 'but you've spoiled me a little.'

Koutarou has no idea what he's saying. Literally none. But Akaashi still has a tiny smile on his face and Koutarou would basically rip his clothes off and jump into the nearest river shrieking out inspirational anime openings if that would keep that smile on Akaashi's face. His eyes are...his lips are kind of...he's in over his head. He's in over his fucking head.

'Yeah,' he says. 'Let's. Yeah.' And we're back to the single syllables. Good fucking job. 'Walk. Yeah, that. That sounds nice.'

'Besides,' Akaashi says, 'I think it would be smarter to invite the two of them to Vertigo, wouldn't it?'

If Akaashi meant to help Koutarou's productivity with that suggestion, then he's kind of failed, because Koutarou's brain goes back to the image of Akaashi up in the DJ cockpit thing (with his eyeliner and his hair and the way he holds his headphones up to one ear) and short-circuits.

He takes an extra-large gulp of his coffee and nearly burns his tongue off.

●●●

The boy has a ponytail. Hitoka's sure she's not supposed to be noticing that first of all, actually she's sure she's not supposed to be making any remarks about the appearances of any of the customers at Le Petit Puppy in the first place, but she can't help but notice that the boy really does have a ponytail, and freckles, and he is really very cute actually—

'Y-Yachi, right?'

Hitoka coughs, then nods, then wonders how he knows, then remembers she has a name tag, then nods again and smiles at the boy. He actually looks a little nervous himself, she's not sure why, but she'd hate for someone to feel ill at ease in what is basically the nicest workplace she's ever had, so she smiles again, wider this time. 'What can I get you?'

'Just a vanilla latte, thank you,' the boy says, and Hitoka nods again and turns away. To justify her excessive noticing of the ponytail, it's not only that some of his hair has escaped it and is kind of curling around his face and looking nicely rough, it's also that she's just never seen him around before. Most of the second and third years already show up very often to the café, so maybe he's a first year and it's true that she hasn't met all of them yet; it's only been one semester after all and she mostly stays with Hinata and Kageyama, so maybe it's just that. 'The— the afternoon shift...it must be boring, no?'

'N-not really!' Hitoka fumbles for a moment with the mug, then sets it on the tabletop in front of her. 'It's actually— quite busy in the afternoons. But it's the end of the break, s-so...'

'Right,' he says. 'Man, I have class on Monday too.'

'You're, uh...'

'First year,' he replies when she turns around. 'Behavioural sciences. You?'

'D-design.'

'Oh, that's cool!'

Hitoka gives him a small smile as she pours the milk into the mug. Faintly, from the back, she can hear Kuroo-san singing again, and he's been doing that a little more often than he usually does these days, not that she minds because he actually has a lovely voice, it's just that she wouldn't expect the average third-year to be this happy this close to the end of the holidays; but then again Kuroo-san is always happier on Saturdays when Granrodeo are going to come play in the evening, and since Hitoka isn't too fond of anything darker or louder than the ambience that the band creates, she quite looks forward to it herself, so she understands his enthusiasm in singing whatever song he is singing right now.

The boy seems to notice too, since he smiles and looks over her shoulder. 'Is that Kuroo-san?'

'Yes,' she says, blinking. 'Y-you know him?'

The boy snorts. 'We met recently, yeah. I-I've been here before, a few times.'

'Oh! I...I don't think I've ever...'

He smiles again, at the countertop. 'Yeah, it's usually busier, so...'

'Right!'

She supposes the conversation so far would suffice for the average barista-customer interaction, but she feels a little bad in leaving him all alone to drink his coffee, so she starts for no other particular reason to rearrange the sprinkle jars. They're arguably the cutest addition to the counter decor, even if she says so herself (she's the one who chose them; all two inches tall with little flower lids), and this way she doesn't have to really look at the boy. Instead, she thinks about the assignment she had to do over the holidays, and then about last week's honestly disastrous photoshoot, and remembers that Bokuto-san has to show her the pictures, and then remembers that she has to meet up with Kageyama and Hinata after her shift to make sure they're prepared for the new term, and then—

'U-um, I think you might know my friend? Tsukishima? Murderous blond with glasses?'

'Oh, Tsukishima-kun!' Hitoka looks up from the sprinkles, smiles at the boy. 'Yes, he comes here sometimes. And I've seen him with Hinata and Kageyama...'

'I'm with them too, usually,' the boy says with a small smile, and immediately Hitoka wants the floor to open up into a secret basement where she can softly fall on a pile of pillows and cease to exist for the living world, because it's absolutely horrible to not have noticed him before, and she can't believe— 'I-it's fine! I mean, I'm not as loud as the other three, so—'

'R-right.'

They both opt for silence after that, which she is kind of grateful for, but she also didn't really mind talking to the boy, but he has to drink his coffee anyway, which he does; a few minutes later he clears his throat and gets off the barstool, counts out his notes while Hitoka waits; she doesn't want to clear the mug away too fast and look rude given that he's alone. When he finally looks up and smiles again, gives a little wave, she smiles in the general direction of his scarf and reaches for the mug as he turns and makes for the door.

He realises he forgot his phone at around the same time that she realises she doesn't know his name; he turns around in the doorway with a furiously red face and sprints back to the counter.

'Sorry,' he says, grabbing the phone and putting it in his pocket. Then he looks up at Hitoka and clears his throat, looks down, looks up again, looks at the door, and just as Hitoka begins to fear for her life he says a little loudly, 'Y-Yamaguchi. Have a nice day.'

Before she knows it, he's gone, and she's still holding one of the sprinkle jars. The sprinkles are bright pink. Very bright pink. So very bright pink. If the sun was pink, it would be pink this brightly. That bright.

Then, before she can really figure out why her face is heating up even more than it usually does, the door swings open again and her own misery is replaced immediately with the one clear on Bokuto-san's face when he steps in. Behind him is that beautiful person she sees on most Saturdays but never remembers the name of, and as she finally puts the sprinkles away she's already wondering what new ways Bokuto-san is going to embarrass himself in this time.

●●●

So, there are many weirdly cute things that Kuroo does, that Koutarou has been collecting over the years. On the other hand, there are some things that are just plain weird. Annoying, actually. One of those is this thing he does where he sings the first line of a song in a really low voice, kind of mumbles it, really. And even though this nonsensical fucking friendship, as Sawamura often refers to it, has carried on for the better part of a decade, Koutarou still thinks every time that Kuroo is trying to whisper something to him.

And every time he leans forward, Kuroo, completely in his own world, will start to holler some shitass chorus of some shitass song that Koutarou's never heard in his life despite being Kuroo's best friend. That kind of thing. He's more or less gotten used to the shitass song choruses, at least, if not the whole fucking ridiculous habit that Kuroo has in the first place.

So this time, when he actually recognises the song for a change, it just makes him narrow his eyes even further— and he's sure that when Kuroo notices they're going to have another round of I'm about to take a shit on your carpet wars, but he can't help it; he never really expected to hear this particular song from Kuroo's mouth.

'Is that,' Koutarou says, then clears his throat, 'Swedish House Mafia, Tetsu.'

Kuroo stops mid-passionate rendition of Don't You Worry Child and looks up, absolutely stricken for a moment. Koutarou's sure Akaashi, if he were here, would be able to read this particular look in a different way than Koutarou himself, but Koutarou doesn't do a terrible job when it comes to Kuroo either. It's just that he's missing some kind of context that Akaashi might actually have, considering that Akaashi knows, like, everything. However, their date had to be cut short because of Akaashi being called in by one of his classmates for some or the other kind of assignment that the poor fuck was behind on, and while Koutarou is less than happy, at least he's going to see Akaashi again later in the evening.

'Listen,' Kuroo says after a long moment.

'I'm listening,' Koutarou says. 'Very carefully.'

'Okay,' Kuroo says. 'So like, the thing is.'

'Yes.'

'Anyway, go help Himuro and the boys.'

'We're all set up!' Himuro calls, and Koutarou turns, knowing he's probably got that secretive I've been eavesdropping smug smile on his face. 'By the way, Bokuto, that is indeed Swedish House Mafia.'

Koutarou turns back to Kuroo. 'Explain.'

Kuroo ignores him utterly, glares over his shoulder at Himuro instead. 'Why aren't you warming up, then?'

'I'll warm your—'

'I mean, today it's Swedish House Mafia,' Koutarou says. 'Tomorrow, what, Finnish Garden Cult?'

Izuki nearly drops his guitar in the shriek of laughter he lets out. Koutarou only knows because Himuro hisses Shun in a voice he's glad the guy doesn't use while singing. He'd laugh too because that was a fucking good one regardless of what anyone with taste would have to say, but honestly he's a man on a mission. A very important mission. A mission entitled Okay So What The Shit Is Up With Kuroo.

He takes in a breath and is about to go off on that when Himuro and Izuki finally get their shit together and he hears the first chord of a song that both he and Kuroo love. Well, to be fair the number of songs that they are both fond of and like to get down to are much higher than the collective number of their differing opinions. It leads to a lot of bro it's our fucking jam moments which either annoy or amuse the average bystander, depending on whether the bystander is Sawamura or Sugawara (those assholes though). Once in a while, though, like now, he and Kuroo are actually capable of calming the fuck down and kind of shuffling along to nice, slow music while talking about utterly random shit ranging from assignments to shoe shopping.

'I'm onto you, by the way,' Kuroo murmurs after taking Koutarou's hand and pulling him close. 'Don't think I'm not.'

'Are you kidding?' Koutarou replies. 'I'm onto you. I'm so absolutely onto you.' He isn't. He's lying through his fucking teeth; all he knows is that Kuroo looked some new kind of I want to take a long shower and contemplate interstellar travel and also life when Tsukki fixed his hair, which could really mean anything from him zoning out to actually contemplate interstellar travel to him having gotten one of those static electricity things, with a detour towards him just being shocked that Tsukki approached him without murderous intent.

'Are not.'

'Am so.'

'Are not.'

He steers Kuroo away from the counter because he doesn't want to knock over any of the, like, shitty cute little pointless fairy dust things that are meant to draw little strawberry fuckers like Tsukki in and sell him cheesecake. Honestly, he's done his fair share of promotional photography for Le Petit Panty but it's always hilarious how easily kids are pulled in. Kuroo bakes a mean...everything, though, so it's not like—

Strawberry fuckers. Norwegian Garage Organisation. Cheesecake.

'WAIT,' Koutarou says. 'WAIT.'

Tsukishima Kei.

'NO,' Kuroo says. 'I HAVE TO GO. GET OUT OF MY CAFÉ.'

'I'M SO ONTO YOU.'

Kuroo draws himself up to full height, which would be terrifying if Koutarou wasn't literally as fucking tall. So he draws himself up to full height, and for a minute they just stand there, Kuroo's hand on his shoulder and his on Kuroo's waist, other hands joined, looking at each other.

'I will see you at Oikawa’s,' Kuroo says coldly. 'Good day, Koutarou.'

'Likewise,' Koutarou sneers back. 'May heaven actually have a plan for your ass.'

●●●

Hitoka had actually found out who Gecko Tooru is during her first semester, before the current holidays, because she'd somehow managed to be befriended by Kageyama and Hinata in the university cafeteria (if Hinata plonking his box of cookies down beside her and vaulting over the table saying hi, you're a first year too, right counts as being befriended, which she thinks it does because they've been more or less spending most of their time together ever since) and in a bizarre chain of events managed to end up outside Kageyama's dorm room sometime later that week, with two blank planners and a packet of hair clips among other things.

Then she'd noticed the door next to Kageyama's (she actually doesn't understand even today how she hadn't noticed that door first) and quite completely forgotten to knock as she was supposed to. The door had a kind of really large portrait of what seemed to be a big, smug-looking reptile of some sort. At that point she hadn't known that Gecko Tooru is, in fact, a chameleon, so she had assumed more sinister things like iguanas or even some kind of fictitious dragons from one of those video games that the kids around her had always seemed to be playing back in high school. Black and white and with a sense of composition and contrast that would have made her mother cry happy tears, the portrait covered almost the entire door, stopping at her feet. She'd been transfixed with the image of her pale pink shoes next to that portrait of that giant lizard for a good minute before Kageyama had opened the door.

It was only upon her specifically asking about the portrait that Kageyama had introduced her to Gecko Tooru— he'd assumed that anyone having spent a fortnight at the university would have heard of the deity already; apparently Hinata had taken one look at the door and yelled something like you live next to Gecko Tooru, oh man, having heard of him from some second-years. Hitoka, who had kept mostly to herself for her first fortnight (before Hinata decided that wouldn't do) had absolutely no idea about any of this.

'Gecko Tooru,' Kageyama had explained, 'stays with his caregiver Oikawa-san, who he is the namesake of.' (Hitoka had known, even back then before actually meeting either of the Tooru's, that it would be oddly disrespectful to question the idea of the lizard being the first of the name as opposed to the human keeping the lizard in his room.) 'There are three basic rules...'

1. Gecko Tooru knows everything.

2. Gecko Tooru's word is law, for Gecko Tooru's word will save the world.

3. Gecko Tooru is never on holiday, for his is a noble cause: saving the world, and sorting out the lives of anyone who seeks his counsel.

When Hitoka had processed and memorised these three rules, Kageyama had proceeded to complain heartily about Oikawa-san himself. Apparently, apart from being housed next to a holy lizard, there were little to no advantages of having Oikawa-san Tooru as a neighbour; in fact, it was something that Kageyama lamented a lot. He still does, to this day, but Hitoka also thinks that he and Oikawa-san might be learning to get along bit by bit, because at least these days Kageyama doesn't show up at the cafeteria looking traumatised in new ways, which is to say that he is now in a comfortable cycling pattern of five different kinds of traumatised, including but not limited to last night Oikawa-san listened to the same 90's pop song for three hours straight, this morning I saw someone leaving Oikawa-san's bedroom who really shouldn't have been in there, and Oikawa-san is having his friends over tonight.

The apprehension he is currently sporting on his face tells Hitoka that today's problem is Oikawa-san is having his friends over tonight, for which she is always sympathetic; she thinks that after Sugawara-san, Kuroo-san might be the most sensible one out of that particular lot of third-years, by which she wants to say that working at Le Petit Rainbow isn't as terrifying of an experience as she was afraid it would be, apart from the times when she has to deal with the aforementioned lot of third-years, whether it's in group form or the worse kind where one of them attempts to date someone and brings them over to the café and she has to deal with not only the general terror of interacting with human beings over a foot taller than her, but also has to do it while watching, helpless, as one of those human beings crashes and burns while attempting to impress the other.

One of the few positives of her situation has always been that even those third-years have some amount of decorum about them when it comes to quiet places like cafés, which is why she always feels very sad for Kageyama when he is wearing the Oikawa-san is having his friends over tonight look. She can't imagine how they must be outside the social confines of public eateries.

'Maybe it's for a group project?' she tries.

Kageyama shakes his head. 'He knocked on my door and said he's going to finally win over Iwaizumi-san tonight—'

'Well, that could mean—'

‘—by dancing on one of the poles at Vertigo.'

'Ah.' Hitoka reaches over and pats Kageyama's knee, even as, outside, she hears that trademark howling sound Bokuto-san makes when someone takes too long to open the door. 'I'm sorry.'

●●●

'I can't believe this,' Sawamura says. 'I didn't buy it, you useless shits.'

Koutarou turns and looks at him with a truckload of sympathy in his eyes. The amount of sympathy that could almost materialise into tears if Koutarou gave enough of a shit about whether everyone believes Sawamura or not. For the count, though, he definitely doesn't believe Sawamura. Not only because Sawamura, in that supervillain bird style of his, is never to be trusted, but also because there's really just no fucking way that Sawamura didn't buy it, because the alternative conclusion would be that Sugawara bought it and that's like. Not possible.

'I'm fucking telling you!' Sawamura looks like his blood pressure is gonna go up really high, really soon. 'Suga bought it.'

'It's a Sasuke figurine,' Kuroo says. 'Sorry, Sawamura, but I, for one, refuse to believe Sugawara could buy something like that.'

'Sugawara has standards,' Oikawa calls on his way to the kitchen. 'No way he bought that thing.'

Koutarou takes a moment to put Sawamura's furious face on Snapchat before turning back to look at Kuroo, who he was looking at before he turned to Sawamura to look at him with a truckload of sympathy in his eyes. He doesn't look at Kuroo with a truckload of sympathy in his eyes, because he doesn't feel a truckload of sympathy for Kuroo. Actually, he doesn't feel any sympathy for Kuroo at all because Kuroo hasn't come clean about various items of interest that he should really be coming clean about, because if not Koutarou, who else is going to help him with his shit?

Well, like, him and Kenma. And Gecko Tooru, but one of Kuroo's amazing points is that he has not, as of yet, ever had to consult Gecko Tooru. Which is an achievement, since Koutarou often finds himself sitting cross-legged at the fantastically curled tail of the gentle creature, when he's not sitting cross-legged on the not-so-fantastic not-so-curled tail of Count Dracula. Anyway, what Koutarou means to say is unless Kuroo actually tells him what the fuck is up (he has a faint idea, of course, it's not like he's completely fucking oblivious— he'd figured out something's fishy from the shoot outtakes and now he's almost entirely certain he's onto what's going on, it's just that this...this might genuinely be the first time he's experiencing this situation with Kuroo and not himself) there's no way that they can sit down and figure any of it out.

Not that there's something to figure out. Not that there isn't. Good God, they need to get to Vertigo already; Koutarou thinks better with a camera in his hands and beats in his ears and vodka down his throat.

Just then, the door opens and Sugawara steps in, waving and taking off his sweater. Noticing everyone's immediate stares at him (even more than usual, usual being the entire room pretending they're not horrendously in love with Sugawara's, like, literal premolars or something since the guy is just that fucking gorgeous; Koutarou never quite recovered from when he decided to go silver) he raises his eyebrows. 'Something on my face, guys?'

Iwaizumi nods towards the Sasuke figurine. 'Sawamura's trying to tell us you bought it.'

Sugawara eyes the figurine for a second, and so does Koutarou. It's not like it's entirely trashy or something; he's heard that it can hold up anything and he's pretty sure they're going to test that at some point tonight before they leave for the club. It's just that if that's the reasoning behind the purchase, it's even more unlikely that Sugawara had anything to do with it. Really, Sugawara has standards. And creepy little plants. And a supervillain bird almost-boyfriend. Which might not really support the idea that he has standards.

Then Sugawara smiles. 'Well, I really hope you don't believe that. I have standards, you know.'

'Suga.'

Koutarou takes another moment to put Sawamura's furiouser face on Snapchat before turning back to look at Kuroo. He's staring at the floor and biting his lip, and looking basically not quite exactly like anything Koutarou's ever seen him look before. Which is a lot of adverbs, he knows, but he doesn't really get how else to explain the expression on Kuroo's face. It's two parts how he looks when Count Dracula, like once a month, decides to give him the gift of sleeping in his lap. One part I would really like to get inside my car right now and drive for a long, long time. One part thinking about a new recipe or cracking an assignment.

That's four out of five, and the fifth is one that Koutarou can't place. Call him dramatic, call him sentimental, but the thing is he only gets to see Kuroo this genuinely content once in a blue moon.

Then the door opens and Kenma enters, and someone yells something about trying out the Sasuke figurine with Count Dracula, and Koutarou looks away from his absently-smiling best friend to turn his attention to more (well, less) dire matters until they leave for Vertigo.

●●●

Hitoka reflects, as she looks at Hinata stick his tongue out like a cartoon character and work on his prepositions, on the two dates that she's been able to see so far between Bokuto-san and the beautiful dark-haired person, because it's usually not possible for Bokuto-san to be in someone's vicinity and not immediately take up their attention. If nothing else, the howling-and-banging combination on Oikawa-san's door was more than enough to draw her focus. Now, she's listening with one ear to the muffled talking and laughter coming from next door and wondering for the tenth time how Kageyama ever manages to get any work done with this kind of gathering happening every other week (well, it's not like Kageyama does get a lot of work done; she truly understands the concept of an athletic recruitment when she looks at his and Hinata's grades) and remembering how frowny and quiet Bokuto-san was earlier in the day, which was unusual because despite how incredibly...silly...both his dates with the very beautiful person have gone, he's always smiled really wide after them, and so seeing him frown at Kuroo-san (and seeing Kuroo-san frown back) was strange. Not that Hitoka would ever ask either of them about it, not just because questioning two frowning six-foot-tall boys about why they're frowning is out of the question, but also because it's not like it's any of her business.

At any rate, today's date seemed to have Bokuto-san less nervous than the previous one (and since that was the first time she'd seen him and the beautiful human being together, she assumes that it was their first date, which would explain everything from Bokuto-san spilling his coffee and pretending it didn't burn in spite of the angry red marks on his arms, to the beautiful person pursing his lips like he was trying really hard not to laugh, to Kuroo-san's exhales of disbelief) which is why she's kind of sad that it was interrupted. Not that she was eavesdropping, she wouldn't dream of doing something like that, but she could gather from a distance that Bokuto-san's beautiful date had to leave early for something or the other. Bokuto-san had seen him to the door just as Himuro-san and Izuki-san drove into the parking, and Hitoka had taken a swift exit into the kitchen because Izuki-san, on most days, is under the impression that telling her approximately sixty three jokes every Saturday is the best way to get her to agree to go to a movie with him, while the reality is that even though about seven of those jokes are actually funny, the occasion of Kuroo-san coming out of the kitchen to out-pun Izuki-san is something that she'd rather not deal with on a Saturday night.

'There they go again,' Kageyama mutters darkly as another round of laughter sets off in the studio next door. 'Hinata, go tell them to be quiet.'

'Why would I do that?' Hinata asks, not looking up from the page he's been staring at for ten minutes. 'You're the taller one.'

'What does height have to do with it?'

'Have you seen that group? Bokuto-san could crush me under his flip-flop.'

Hitoka starts to think about the boy with the ponytail, then remembers that his name is Yamaguchi, then remembers that she's not supposed to be remembering him, and turns away from the boys to hide her face. In comparison to Bokuto-san's unfortunate existence, her little afternoon latte with him doesn't seem all that terrible. She's actually smiling while thinking about it, especially the way he'd run back for his phone.

'Bokuto-san is nice. You just have to avoid Oikawa-san.'

'It's Oikawa-san's apartment.'

She has that one mini-portfolio to turn in too...and she forgot to ask Bokuto-san to give her the shoot files. The boy— Yamaguchi— said he's Tsukishima-kun's friend, so maybe he knows about the shoot. Actually, since Tsukishima-kun went to the same high school as Hinata and Kageyama, that could mean that the— Yamaguchi— went with them too. She really can't believe she never really spoke to him before...well, she can believe it since she initiates conversation one out of ten times with people, but she's a little surprised anyway, which is already entirely too much thought devoted to one coffee.

'You're small. They won't notice you.'

'Then how can I tell them to be quiet.'

Just then, a variety of events happens seemingly at the same time; there is some kind of absolutely hellish hissing sound from next door, and then some kind of equally hellish animalistic cry, followed by a single, long, high-pitched scream and then a hysterical-laughter breakdown of apocalyptic measures. A few seconds after this happens and the three of them are still recovering from the startled jumping they did at the noise, there's a knock on Kageyama's door and Tsukishima-kun steps in.

'I really hope that congregation of miscreants isn't going to Vertigo tonight,' he says, looking disgusted. 'I want a decent evening.'

Hinata's response is drowned out by the low-volume white noise in Hitoka's ear as she sees, after Tsukishima-kun, Yamaguchi stepping in, removing his shoes and tugging on his scarf.

A decent evening. Right.

●●●

It takes ten minutes to get Count Dracula to calm down, and another five minutes to sort out Oikawa's face. The most damage done is on the psychological level as opposed to the physical, although Koutarou's only saying that because he couldn't give two shits about Oikawa's face. Guy could pull off a potato sack and antlers on his head, Koutarou's not gonna break his heart over a bunch of scratches, especially when he and Kuroo are already sporting their fair share. Also, not that he's bitter or anything, but in spite of the shit Oikawa pulled to have gotten the scratches on his pretty mug in the first place, Koutarou's remains the worst story behind Count-Dracula-Related-Injuries. He can't exactly go around telling people I basically annoyed the cat until he lost his shit. At least Kuroo gets to show his and say he took them for Tsukki.

Tsukki. Cheesecake. Electronic dance music. Vertigo.

'It's good enough,' Iwaizumi says, ignoring the kiss Oikawa blows at him and stepping back from his handiwork: two Rilakkuma bandaids on Oikawa's cheekbone, looking fucking ridiculous, of course. Koutarou takes a picture for Snapchat and adds extra flowers around Oikawa's peace sign, then pockets his phone and glares at basically everyone.

'I'm getting late,' he says. 'Unlike you fucks, I'm actually paid to be there instead of paying.'

'Ooh, Bokuto's a big boy,' Sawamura sings. 'Bokuto has a job. Bokuto takes one thousand three hundred—'

'You can walk there, asshole, no place in my car for you.'

'You don't have a car,' Ushijima supplies.

'Tetsu's car.'

'You can have shotgun, Sawamura.'

Koutarou whirls around to make an affronted face at Kuroo's smirking one, but then gives up on the evening in three seconds and stomps to the door. He's going out into the world to make an honest living, and if this band of bastards doesn't want to have him in a good mood while doing it, well, he's going to do it anyway.

In the wretched nightclub's defence, he does return to good spirits the moment the bouncer greets him. The bartenders are all fun and relaxed, the prices are what everyone expects of a student hangout, and of course the music is fucking brilliant. The only thing more brilliant than the music is the guy playing it. Sawamura can laugh as much as he wants, but if Koutarou had to take another one thousand three hundred and seventeen pictures of God of Disc Jockeying Akaashi Keiji to document how fucking incredible his presence is, he'd gladly do it. Outside of the club, inside the club, with his hands on machines or with his hands around coffee cups, there are things about the guy that draw Koutarou in something wicked.

'At least pretend you're here with us,' Sugawara laughs in his ear, lowly, and Koutarou snorts, tears his gaze away from Akaashi's distant light-distorted form.

But it's only minutes later when he's staring down into his drink (the others have already launched themselves onto the floor; it's back to academic hell on Monday after all) that he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to look right down into Akaashi's face, up close, a light sheen of sweat on his temples caught glistening under the vicious lights overhead. Akaashi's eyeliner is already smudged, or was from the beginning, and Koutarou feels something clench between his chest and his throat, right where water goes when you swallow it too fast. Holy fuck, that hurts, but so does Akaashi's raised eyebrow.

'Will your bespectacled subject number two be showing up?' he asks, and Koutarou nods dumbly.

'Yeah,' he says. 'Uh. So I heard.'

'Well then,' Akaashi says. 'You'll have to keep your lens off me this time, Bokuto-san.'

Koutarou's already huffing a laughing before he realises what he just heard. You'll have to keep your lens off me this time. Akaashi just— he just fucking—

'I,' Koutarou says.

Then— then Akaashi. Akaashi brings a hand up to his mouth and laughs, brief, low, looking right into Koutarou's fucking soul with those dark fucking eyes of his.

'Only for the time being, though,' he says. 'If you have some battery left, there's always later.'

There's always later.

Of all the fucking times for Kuroo to lose his perceptiveness and come barging into something, he picks that very moment to bound up to Koutarou, sleeves rolled up, sweat already rolling down his neck. Grabs Koutarou's wrist, whispers a come on, man all breathless and lustful. Akaashi's still looking clearly at Koutarou, but then he raises a hand and turns away, leaving Koutarou rooted to the spot even as Kuroo tugs at him.

Then Akaashi looks over his shoulder, and for the first time, smiles with teeth. Like he meant for it to be a smirk but it ran away from him, and that would really be the summary of Koutarou's own loss of control.

He groans out loud and surrenders, lets Kuroo pull him into the crowd, under the vicious lights and the brilliant music and the dangerous smell of Akaashi's cologne.