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Bokuto was usually one of the fastest in the showers so he was the first to spot it. A big, flat rectangle draped with a grey cloth hung on what had previously been a blank stretch of tile wall in their locker room. Was it a mirror? Some of the others were starting to emerge from the showers. “Hey, look! Now maybe more than two of us can do our hair at the same time!”
“Good.” Komi chirped, reaching up to ruffle Bokuto’s still damp hair. “Because some of us take way longer than others.”
Bokuto leaned forward to tug on a corner of the cloth.
“Bokuto-san, if it’s covered, we’re probably not intended to use it yet. We should probably just leave it for now.”
He turned to pout at Akaashi without realizing the cloth was still in his hand. The slight motion brought the whole cover whooshing down around his sneakers. Akaashi shot him a look, he grinned sheepishly back. “Whoops?”
By this time the rest of the team was streaming in, heading to their lockers to change. Sarukui gave Bokuto a good-natured thump on the shoulder on his way past. Usually Bokuto just grinned and thumped him back. This time he shifted forward and felt the slip of his sneaker over grey fabric instead of the locker room floor, sending him back into the new mirror.
Instead of the cool, hard surface he expected against his back he felt a very slight give then nothing at all as he toppled backwards into darkness - too surprised to do anything other than utter a panicked shout.
As he was going down he could see Akaashi and Konoha peering down from really high up and caught one last snippet of conversation before everything went grey and staticy.
“Did Bokuto-san just fall through some kind of magic mirror?”
“You don’t sound surprised enough, Akaashi. This is not a scenario you should have been expecting! But, yeah, I think so.”
He landed with a thump - uncomfortable but certainly not the bone shattering impact he was expecting. He opened his eyes tentatively and was greeted by his teammates. Huh, did he just slip in the locker room and hallucinate a weird mirror?
“Bokuto-san, I asked you to stop screwing around. We can’t afford to break that new mirror.” Akaashi looked and sounded completely normal, a faint disapproving frown on his face that Bokuto was more than familiar with.
“What new mirror?”
That voice also sounded familiar. The whole team whipped around and when they moved, Bokuto could see the cause of their alarm. He saw himself standing in the doorway of the shower, looking confused. He could relate.
He had to look down at himself for a second just to make sure but yeah, he felt real. The guy in the doorway definitely looked like him. He looked back up and their eyes met.
“DUDE!”
“DUDE”
They both cracked up, laughter echoing loudly off of tiled walls.
Other Bokuto strode over and offered a hand to pull him up. He took it and leaped to his feet. Face to face it was… well, it was just like looking in a mirror. They spent a couple of seconds arching their eyebrows and grinning at each other.
Akaashi sounded like he was going to pass out. “How did this happen?” There was no answer from the rest of the team. They seemed stunned.
Bokuto smiled at him, “Guess the new mirror must have been magic after all! I fell through this mirror in our locker room and landed here. In your locker room.”
At this point the room erupted in sound, the team talking over each other while Bokuto and Other Bokuto poked and patted each other, checking for differences.
“It’s got to be parallel universes.”’ Konoha insisted. “Nothing else makes sense.”
“Ok, so there’s like some small difference between our world and his?” Komi asked, pointing at Bokuto.
This made perfect sense to Bokuto, he’d read about the idea. He wondered what was different. “Oh my god, you guys do play volleyball, don’t you?!” What if they were a baseball team or like soccer or tennis or something?! He wasn’t the fastest runner and he had no idea what kind of damage he might do with a racket in his hand.
“Dude, chill. We’re a volleyball team.” Other Bokuto threw a comforting arm around his shoulder. Man, Kuroo was right, he does has nice arms.
While everyone else discussed the validity of Konoha’s theory and, Akaashi insisted, what to do about it, Bokuto checked other important facts.
“Kuroo is still our best bro, right?”
“Dude, of course!”
“We’re still in the top five spikers in Japan?”
Other Bokuto preened, “You know it!”
“Karasuno came to our summer training camp this year?”
“Ha! Yes. Tsukki thinks we’re annoying here too. And Hinata is still awesome.”
“Ummm... do we have a little brother here?”
“Whoa! A little brother? No, man. We’re - I’m an only child.”
They turned to the group in one smooth motion, the rest of the team collectively took a step back.
“We found it! The difference!”
Other Bokuto patted his shoulder. “Looks like our parents decided to have a second kid in his universe. Problem solved forever!”
Sarukui cleared his throat, “Sure, Bo. Except that the problem we were working on is how to get him back. You know, to his own universe?”
“Oh. Right.” Bokuto could feel his mood falling exactly as other Bokuto’s shoulders slumped.
Akaashi sighed. “Well, we can’t stay here all night. Extra Bokuto-san, you can stay with me for a few days. We’ll tell my mom that your parents are going out of town. We’ve done it before so it shouldn’t be a problem. Bokuto-san, you make sure that no one outside of this room sees you two together. Ok?”
He rounded on everyone else with a stern face that brooked no argument. “And you all will help. Right? Good.”
Staying with Akaashi was fun. He borrowed some clothes from Other Bokuto and they left for school together but of course Bokuto couldn’t actually go to school so he went off to spend the day at the library or coffee shop. And the second day he actually got to check out the new owl cafe when the line was less than two hours long!
Still, it was weird and he missed his routine and he really missed practice so he was very happy that they had a long weekend training event with Nekoma coming up. Other Akaashi was confident they could sneak him in and Other Bokuto promised they could trade off and share practice time. He was so good to himself. They were all extra excited when Coach informed them that Karasuno would be attending as well.
He was actually a little unsure about meeting Other Kuroo. Despite Other Bokuto’s assurances that he would be stoked, he was nervous. He hung behind a little when they made their way to where Nekoma was setting up their space, loitering in the hallway.
Other Bokuto bounded up to Kuroo and whispered something, pulling him out of the room.
“Jeez, ok, I’m coming already! What could possibly be so amazing that you had to grab me literally the second my bag hit the floor-” Other Kuroo stopped dead the second he saw Bokuto, his eyes going wide. “Whoa.”
“Told you!” Other Bokuto crowed. “C’mon, bathroom! Akaashi will be pissed if everyone sees.”
Other Kuroo let Other Bokuto pull him along, still goggling at Bokuto as they clattered into the bathroom and locked the door. He reached out a hand to poke Bokuto’s chest, seeming like he didn’t quite believe his eyes.
After a second he turned to other Bokuto with a grin. “Bro!”
“Broooo!”
Bokuto couldn’t help but smile. They sounded exactly like him and his Kuroo. Other Kuroo turned quickly and pulled him into a huge hug.
“DOUBLE BRO!”
“Hi!” Bokuto laughed, maybe this would be ok after all.
Having two Bokutos at the training event was supposed to be a super secret so of course all of the Nekoma and Karasuno players knew about it by the first afternoon. Somehow they managed to keep the coaches and managers from finding out but it was only through a great amount of effort which mostly amounted to lots of shushing and strategic elbows applied to sides.
It wasn’t until the second day that someone noticed the new mirror in the bigger boys’ bathing room.
“Hey guys?” Hinata’s orange head popped around the doorframe peering into the room where a bunch of the second and third years had been relaxing. “Was that big, mysterious mirror in the upstairs bathroom yesterday?”
They immediately all stampeded up to the second floor to check it out.
“Yeah this does look really similar.” Bokuto leaned in close but not tooclose. It was the same size, had the same drapey cloth, and mysterious origin as his. He cautiously lifted one finger up to the surface, It was strange enough being here and this place was almost exactly like home. He didn’t want to end up somewhere crazy. His fingertip brushed the surface of the mirror and it shimmered.
“Whoa!” He jumped back, stumbling into Other Bokuto, who immediately grabbed his shoulders to stabilize him.
When the shimmering stopped a few seconds later the mirror reflected a very similar scene: a room full of volleyball players crammed together to inspect something on the wall. In fact everything looked exactly the same with one notable change. No him!
“Holy shit, Bokuto?!” The Kuroo in the mirror was looking right at him. Them, probably.
“Kuroo!”
“Dude, you’re ok!”
Well that sounded encouraging. Both Akaashi’s stepped up to peer into the mirror. His Akaashi, at least he fervently hoped that was his Akaashi, gave them a long suffering look.
“Well, Bokuto-san, you seem to have ended up somewhere similar to here, that’s good. Now we just have to figure out how to get you back. Touch the mirror again, would you?”
He poked the surface again but it felt normal, he flattened his palm against the glass. It felt like an ordinary surface.
Both Akaashis frowned and his Akaashi pulled Kenma and a couple of others over to confer.
Meanwhile sized up his best friend. Bokuto had been worried about his Kuroo suddenly being confronted with a Bokuto-shaped hole in his life. He should have known better. If there was one thing Kuroo was really good at, it was turning any situation to his advantage.
The two Kuroos compared notes through the mirror.
His Kuroo leaned in with a grin. “Hey, Bo! Miss you, dude. But you!” He turned to Other Kuroo. “Double Bokuto, that is so great!!”
Other Kuroo wriggled himself in between Bokuto and Other Bokuto, slinging an arm around each of their necks while they laughed. “Tell me about it! I’ve always wondered… well. You know.” He winked lasciviously at his other self. “And you! You get Tsukki all to yourself!”
“I knoooow! So great. All Tsukki all the time!”
“All to himself completely disregarding the large number of people I spend time with and the fact that we live three hours away from each other.” Tsukki ground out through gritted teeth.
His Kuroo just made double thumbs up and did a little boogie while Tsukki glared daggers through the mirror. Other Tsukki commiserated with his counterpart, “I will figure out a way to fix this. I cannot deal with two of him forever.”
Bokuto knew his friends were super smart and would definitely figure out a way to get him home. But in the meantime he was going to go with the flow and enjoy this while it lasted knowing that he had an opportunity to do something incredible. He could really get to know himself.
And have the most epic spiking practice sessions ever.