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"Holy shit!" Bokuto cries, picking up his finished drawing and holding it grandly in front of himself. Akaashi cringes as their art teacher shoots them a murderous glare for interrupting the peaceful silence of the classroom. He bows his head in apology for his friend and she sighs, then looks away, already used to Bokuto's unawareness of his surroundings. Bokuto doesn't actually realise that she'd even looked at them, instead continuing to verbally praise his own work at an unnecessarily high volume. "This drawing isn't half bad! It's only, like, a quarter bad! Which means it's three quarters good! That's fucking awesome, dude, I've never achieved this before-"
"Bokuto-san. Please lower your voice." Akaashi pleads. "The teacher is going to kick us out, she seriously hates us right now. And like four other people in this room are looking at us like they want us dead."
Pausing, Bokuto blinks owlishly (owlishly). "Oh." He whispers dramatically, shrinking in his seat, his eyes flicking around the room and finding many pairs of eyes on him. "I'm not trying to annoy them. I'm just happy."
"I know. Try and be happy more quietly, though."
"Okay." He agrees, using his inside voice. He smiles enthusiastically. "Anyway, look at my drawing, Akaashi!"
He turns his paper around and holds it proudly in front of Akaashi's face. It's a picture of a black cat and a taller blond-coloured cat sitting next to each other. The taller cat looks disinterested and mildly annoyed whilst the black cat is standing proudly with a smug smile on it's face. It's clear who these cats are meant to be, and the drawings are simplistic but surprisingly good. Akaashi can't help but smiles, nodding his head seriously. "It's good!"
"I know right!" Aaand Bokuto is back to using his outside voice again. Akaashi doesn't even try to get him to quieten down again, deciding that it's not worth the trouble. It's likely that Bokuto will never be entirely quiet. "Guess who they're meant to be!"
"Tsukishima-kun and Kuroo-san?"
Bokuto nods, grinning. "Yeah! I'm glad you could tell, that means the drawing is good. Do you think Kuroo would like it?"
"Of course he would. He loves cats."
"True. I'll Snapchat it to him now-" Bokuto starts, whipping out his phone. The teacher clears her throat loudly to remind Bokuto that phones aren't supposed to be used in class, obviously. Bokuto notices her this time, and proceeds to panic and fumble with his phone for a second, before shoving it back into his pocket. He smiles at her sheepishly. "I meant I'll Snapchat it to him later, after the lesson ends, once I have left the room. Of course."
"Good idea."
The two of them fall into silence again, Akaashi continuing to work on his own piece quietly while Bokuto, who has nothing else to do now that he's finished his drawing, watches him. "What are you drawing, Akaashi?"
Akaashi is actually drawing a dinosaur which he originally planned to give Tsukishima for his birthday because he thought it'd be funny, but it currently looks more like a horse than any kind of dinosaur, really. Akaashi is too embarrassed to tell anyone what he was planning on drawing, so he just says "I don't really know. Open to interpretation."
"Oh. Fancy. Let me see, I want to interpret." Bokuto makes grabby hands for the paper until Akaashi gives it to him, then he holds it up and stares at it with an analytical gaze. "Kind of looks like a dinosaur to me. You should give it to Tsukki, he'd like it."
Surprised, Akaashi smiles a little, feeling kind of genuinely proud that his work had been appreciated. He nods and takes his drawing back, looking down at it with a small chuckle. "It's funny how the first people we think about when we see anything is them, right?"
Bokuto hums. "Yeah, I guess. It's understandable, though. We miss them a lot, it's not like we get to see them everyday."
"Yeah." Akaashi mumbles. "We should meet up with them soon."
"We should. I'll call Kuroo about it later on." Bokuto decides. "I don't want to seem clingy, though, you know? What if they're getting along just fine at their schools without us and we're the only ones moping around and struggling to live our stupid lives like we're missing an important limb or something?"
"That's the problem with having a long distance relationship, even if the distance isn't all that long, I guess." Akaashi sighs.
Bokuto nods and sighs as well, and they sit quietly for a few moments before Bokuto pulls another piece of paper towards himself and starts drawing something new. Akaashi goes back to his horse-dinosaur and the two of them continue in silence, and, to outsiders, it seems as if the conversation had never taken place.
**
"Kenma."
Unsurprisingly, there is no answer, and all Kuroo can hear is the clicking of remote control buttons and the quiet cries of video game characters as they're defeated on the screen.
"Kenma."
More button clicking and still no answer. The clicking shows no sign of stopping any time soon. In fact, it only intensifies.
"Kenma." Kuroo reaches out from where he is sitting on the sofa and begins to shake his friend's thin shoulder gently. "Kenmaaaaaaaaaaaaa." He whines.
"What, Kuroo?" The smaller boy huffs, sounding as if he'd rather do literally anything but acknowledge his best friend right now, which is sort of ridiculous, Kuroo thinks, because he's awesome.
"I miss my boyfriends." He confesses, releasing his shoulder and flopping backwards on the couch, staring up at the ceiling of Kenma's bedroom as if it might give him the solution to his problems. "Especially Tsukki. I want to give him hugs. I wish I could give him a big snuggly fucking hug and hear him pretend to hate it. I miss him. Sigh."
"Don't just say the word "sigh" out loud when you talk. It makes me uncomfortable."
"Tch." Kuroo scoffs, feeling a little bit hurt. "Okay then, Kenma, just ignore everything else I said." He mumbles huffily, shuffling around a little and pulling a pillow to his chest, hugging it just like he would hug Tsukishima if he was here. Which he isn't. Kuroo sighs.
Shrugging and shoving a strawberry pocky into his mouth, Kenma carries on playing his game without another word. Kuroo knows that Kenma is not intentionally trying to making him feel like a side bitch, but he still feels a little bit like he's intruding on an intimate date between Kenma and his video games. With nothing to do, Kuroo goes back to staring at the ceiling mindlessly, waiting for it to give him answers. Why won't it give him answers?
Minutes later, he says "Kenma."
The smaller boy merely grunts to express the fact that he's listening.
"When are you next going to see Hinata?"
"Next week, maybe."
"I'll go with you."
"Okay." Kenma shrugs. "Don't you miss the other two though? Owl head and actual sane person?"
Kuroo sits up, preparing himself to explain everything he's feeling to Kenma in great detail. Kenma must be able to sense the imminent rant because he pauses his game to listen. "Sure, I miss Bokuto and Akaashi, too, obviously. I mean, I see them in practice matches more often than I see Tsukki, but I don't see them all the time, you know?" Kuroo says. "But it's been so long since I last saw him. Whenever we try to meet up, he just says he can't come because he has to travel further. It's reasonable, though, because I guess he'd have to come all the way by himself, but whenever the three of us offer to go over and visit him, he says there's no point in all of us trekking over to see him when it's so far." Kuroo sighs. "And, I mean, like, Tsukki is Tsukki, you know? I always miss him, so I want to see him as soon as I can. Maybe I should ask Bokuto and Akaashi if they can come too, we could all surprise him."
"Yeah, I suppose." Kenma says. "There's no reason why you can't come with me when I go to see Shouyou. I'm staying at his place, though, so you guys will have to find somewhere else to go."
"Tsukki might let us stay, maybe. He's pretty weird about having people around his parents for long periods of time, though."
"Yeah, I heard."
Closing his eyes, Kuroo hums. "Tsukki is so cool."
"Be careful, you're starting to sound like the little brown haired guy from Karasuno, the one who follows Tsukishima-kun around like a lost puppy all the time."
Kuroo laughs, his hand coming upwards to cover his mouth. "Yamaguchi is taller than you, why are you calling him little?"
Kenma ignores this.
"I mean, I actually talk to Yamaguchi quite a bit these days, so maybe he's rubbing off on me."
"Maybe."
The little characters on the TV screen continue to cry out as Kenma continues to defeat them. Kuroo watches them absentmindedly until he feels his phone begin to vibrate in his pocket. He briefly considers ignoring it in favour of moping quietly to himself, but then decides that it could be important, so he should at least check who it is. If it's Lev, he's totally ignoring it, no offence to Lev or anything. He just does not want to talk to him right now.
He reaches into his pocket to pull the device out with one hand, squinting at the screen to see the caller ID. The writing informs him that "Brokuto!!!" is calling him. Immediately, Kuroo leaps upright and slams his finger down on the answer button, bringing his phone to his ear.
"BRO. I was totally just pining for you guys just now!" Kuroo exclaims.
"Same!" Bokuto yells in agreement. Kuroo is so happy to hear his voice that he nearly cries. "Oh my god, me and Akaashi have been pining so hard for you and Tsukki, you know, it's fucking ridiculous. Literally, the other day I saw a fucking pencil sharpener shaped like a cat and I thought of you. I'm messed up. I miss you guys so much, but I'm trying my hardest not to be clingy..." Bokuto whines.
"No, it's totally not clingy, bro, I miss you guys too!" Kuroo assures him. "I was thinking just now that maybe we should all arrange to go and see Tsukki soon, we hardly ever visit him, and I think he deserves a surprise. Kenma's going to see Hinata next week so I thought we could all go too?"
"Yeah, that's such a good idea! Actually, Akaashi drew a dinosaur that he wants to give him, so it'll be super cool if we could surprise him with it! And we should arrange something else too, something super big and cool and stuff!"
For a minute, Kuroo thinks. "Wait. Wait. Next week, do you know what's next week?"
"What?!"
"Halloween!"
"Halloween! We should totally show up in costumes and pretend to be trick-or-treaters to surprise him!"
"Dude, yes. Yes? this is totally happening. We are making this happen. I'm so excited now, I have to go and arrange shit. I'll ask around about matching costumes and look at nearby hotels for just in case Tsukki's parents don't want us all staying, which is likely because there's three of us."
"True."
"But anyway, I'll text you the details, bro!"
"Okay! See you, bro! Miss you loads!" Bokuto makes kissy noises into the phone. Kuroo laughs then returns the sentiment by making fake vomit noises back to his boyfriend before he hangs up.
Kenma, having been ignored for the whole conversation, sighs. "You guys are so loud."
"Yeah." Kuroo smiles. "We are."
**
Tsukishima sneezes for what feels like the hundredth time in the last five minutes. He huffs, brings his hand up to cover his now running nose, and mutters "I think Kageyama gave me his fucking cold, the cheeky little shit."
Laughing lightly, Yamaguchi says "Are you sure it's a cold? I mean, when you sneeze for no reason it supposedly means that someone's talking about you." He tells him, handing him another tissue.
Reluctantly, Tsukishima accepts it. "Hopefully a bunch of people I've pissed off in the past have gotten together and are currently planning my murder. That'd be cool."
"So morbid, Tsukki."
Blowing his nose then shoving the dirtied tissue into his pocket, Tsukishima shrugs. "I guess."
He sighs.
The two of them keep walking. The street is dark, silent, completely empty, and the air is as cold as Tsukishima's heart. The pair of friends are wrapped up in scarves and gloves to shield themselves from the winter weather as they walk home after volleyball practice. Tsukishima sighs again, completely satisfied with just walking in silence, because honestly, conversation seems unnecessarily bothersome right now, and he's tired after a day of being around large numbers of people.
Yamaguchi, it seems, has other ideas. In the silence, he glances over at his taller friend, notices the distant, forlorn expression on his face, and he just cannot keep himself quiet. "You're acting strange, Tsukki. Are you okay?"
No, he's tired. "I'm fine."
Biting his lip, Yamaguchi looks away, and a few beats of silence pass by. He seems to consider something, and then he looks back towards his friend. "Do you miss them?" He asks, abruptly. "Is what why you're moping?"
"Miss who?" Tsukishima asks dryly.
"You know who."
"Voldemort?"
Yamaguchi huffs. "Cheap joke, Tsukki. Cheap joke. I'm disappointed."
Feeling even more tired than he'd felt just a second ago, Tsukishima sighs. "I'm not moping, Yamaguchi, fuck off." The blond boy insists. He sighs again, gives his brunet friend a warning glance, which is happily ignored, and starts walking a little faster.
"You miss them." Yamaguchi says, smiling.
"Obviously. They're my boyfriends." He mutters.
The smaller boy hums. After a moment of silence, he asks "Are you going to go see them soon?"
Tsukishima shrugs. "Maybe in a couple of weeks. Depends. It's quite far."
"Depends on what? On whether you can pluck up the courage to ask?"
"No!" Tsukishima protests, sounding much like a little boy pretending that it wasn't him who ate the last cookie in the jar. "It depends on whether or not I'm free."
"You and I both know that you're free most of the time outside of school hours and volleyball practice, Tsukki."
Tsukishima doesn't say anything. They walk onwards quietly until Yamaguchi tentatively starts talking again.
"I'm sure they miss you, too, you know." He assures his friend, quietly. "If you want to visit, just tell them. I miss Oikawa-san when we're apart, and he misses me, so we visit each other whenever we can."
Wincing, Tsukishima waves his hands quickly. "I don't want to hear about your relationship with Oikawa, thanks. I already have to listen to Hinata talk about his own with Kenma-san all the time."
Yamaguchi blinks. "What? Since when did you talk to Hinata?"
"Since he started giving me gumballs in exchange for listening to him talk. The standard rate is one gumball per minute."
"Oh. Good deal."
"Yeah."
"Anyway. You miss your boyfriends."
"Yeah... As much as I love seeing them, I find it hard to ask to visit. I don't want to seem clingy."
"You physically cannot seem clingy when you see them like once a month."
Tsukishima sighs, shrugs, starts walking even quicker so Yamaguchi has to almost jog to keep up with him.
"Please, just ask if you can see them soon. That way, once you've seen them, you'll feel less shitty and you'll have a better term at school."
"Mhm."
"So you'll ask?"
"I might." Tsukishima answers, ambiguously.
"Promise me?"
The blond boy mumbles something inaudible and glances around a little, then he says "Oh look, here's my house. Damn, I have to end his conversation now and leave. Bye." He says flatly.
Yamaguchi just laughs.
Scowling, Tsukishima grunts another goodbye and turns sharply onto his driveway, striding up to the front door and not stopping until he's safely inside the hallway of his house.
Finally able to relax, he drops his bag on the floor and leans against the wall, eyes shut, his face heavy with exhaustion-
"Oh! Hey, Kei, you're home-" a voice calls.
Tsukishima groans aloud and his eyes snap open, muttering "Akiteru, not today, fuck you very much." under his breath. He grabs his bag and storms upstairs before his brother can continue talking, fully aware that he's acting like a moody teenager, but, well, he doesn't give a fuck, because that's who he is in reality. He strides into his room and locks the door behind him.
Relieved to be alone at last, Tsukishima collapses on his bed. Here, he will mope for the rest of the weekend and then feel awful about not doing anything when he wakes up on Monday morning. That's the plan.
And he probably won't even ask his boyfriends if he can see them, just because he's high-key terrified of seeming desperate, but who cares, because he didn't actually promise anything to Yamaguchi anyway.
**
"Power Rangers?!" Bokuto asks excitedly, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels as he stares at the outfits in front of him. His eyes are alight with happiness and a grin is spread across his face, a sight which isn't dissimilar to the sight of a child on Christmas morning. "So cool, oh my god!" He squeals.
"Oh no." Akaashi mutters wearily, at the same time as Kuroo whoops loudly and yells "Heck yes!"
"I call red!" Bokuto yells as he starts rifling through the box of clothes. His voice is muffled, but the sheer volume of it means his words can be heard rather clearly by the other two. "Kuroo, you have to be green because green is, like, Slytherin and stuff. That means Akaashi, you have to be blue, because you're smart, and you're obviously in Ravenclaw."
"Where did we even get these outfits again?" Akaashi asks, staring incredulously at the box on his bed and feeling genuinely offended by the sight of it. He would honestly rather do anything other than dress up as a Power Ranger, and when he says anything, he means anything. But, he thinks, the three of them had spent a long time trying to think of a way in which they could surprise Tsukishima this weekend, and this is what they'd been able to come up with. He supposes he has no choice but to dress up, for the sake of their relationship. Who says romance is dead?
Bokuto turns around and grins at Akaashi. "Kuroo managed to borrow them from Tsukishima's shy friend, the one who Oikawa ended up dating... Yamamoto? Sakaguchi?"
"Yamaguchi, bro!"
"I was close!"
"You totally weren't. Wow, what a fake fan."
"A fake Yamaguchi fan?"
"A fake Tsukki fan."
"Tsukki is our boyfriend, not a random pop idol we're obsessed with!"
Kuroo just sticks his tongue out. Bokuto pinches him in return.
Akaashi rolls his eyes. "Anyway." He says loudly. "Why did Yamaguchi-kun have these costumes in the first place? They're literally adult sized Power Rangers costumes, most people don't have that kind of thing just lying around."
The room goes silent. Bokuto, turning to Kuroo with curious eyes, says "Yeah, you never did tell us that, Kuroo."
"He..." The man in question clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. He remembers asking Yamaguchi that same thing, remembers the blush on his face as he hurried to change the subject, how he refused to say a word on the matter at all. "He wouldn't tell me."
Akaashi blinks. "That's sketchy."
The three of them fall into silence again.
"Anyway." Bokuto is the one to say it this time, going back to shuffling through the clothes in the box. "Let's try these on."
**
"I feel like an absolute twat." Akaashi grunts, pulling at the stretchy yet clingy fabric dubiously. He hates the way it feels against his skin, sort of like he's wearing a wetsuit. Well, one that comes with a helmet. It's extremely uncomfortable. "It's so clingy." He complains.
"Then you're wearing it right." Bokuto confirms. He looks rather comfortable, actually, Akaashi realises as he looks over at his boyfriend. His red costume suits him perfectly, and he appears to feel right at home wearing it.
Kuroo, it seems, feels the same way in his green costume. He stands, hands on his hips, grinning as he chats excitedly to Bokuto about their fancy attire.
Apparently everyone feels completely at ease in their outfit except Akaashi, which is, well...
"Great." He mutters. "Just great."
**
When Tsukishima opens the door to find three Power Rangers standing on his doorstep, his first thought is "Wow, kids are getting taller and taller as the years go by." because damn, these Power Rangers are, like, almost as tall as him, and he swears kids aren't meant to be that tall. They're meant to be about Hinata or Nishinoya size, right? Right?
His second thought is "Dammit I have to give them candy." because it's Halloween and that's what you do when kids show up at your house wearing weird outfits. He grabs his family's bowl of sweets from the floor and holds it out towards the Power Rangers, telling them to "Take one each." whilst he wonders, not for the first time that evening, why Akiteru has been forcing him to open the door every time the doorbell rings, a knowing smile on his face.
The Power Rangers do not take the candy. Instead, the red one starts talking, his voice muffled by the mask and therefore unidentifiable. "We don't need candy, babe, because you're sweet enough."
What the fuck, Tsukishima thinks. He briefly wonders if the police are sending kids undercover to peoples' houses on Halloween to see who accepts their sexy propositions and arrest the perverts that do.
But then, the three Power Rangers proceed to take off their masks-
And he is met by the faces of his three boyfriends. His three idiot boyfriends who are standing on his doorstep, dressed as Power Rangers from the neck downwards, two of which are grinning like they're expecting him to scream with happiness whilst the other one is smiling awkwardly and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
Tsukishima is so fucking happy to see them.
So he blinks, inhales and takes a step backwards, then closes the door in their faces.
For a moment, he stands there, his hand clenching and unclenching around the door handle, internally trying to figure out how he should deal with this situation. He's missed them, he's missed them so much, but it'd be so fucking out of character to show it, as much as he wants to.
In the end, he takes a deep breath and opens the door again.
His boyfriends turn to look at him, their faces a fucked up mixture of nervous and confused.
"You guys are such shitheads, seriously." Tsukishima huffs. "I want to be angry at you for doing something so fucking lame but, like..."
Everyone waits in a tense silence for Tsukishima to finish his sentence, terrified that their plan has been a failure. Even Akaashi is nervous, although he is impatient, his fingers itching to grab hold of Tsukishima's collar and force him to get to the point.
"I guess I did miss you three. A lot."
Tears spring to Bokuto's eyes at the (mildly) emotional words from his normally emotionless boyfriend. "Aw! Tsukki!" He yells. Kuroo's mouth forms his trademark grin and Akaashi exhales, smiling. He hadn't put on this uncomfortable outfit for nothing, after all.
Then, not missing a beat, Bokuto and Kuroo leap forwards and tackle Tsukishima into a tight hug, pulling Akaashi along with them. The taller two begin coo over Tsukishima, giving him unwanted attention and telling him how proud they are that he's finally able to tell them things like this without hesitating and then deciding to just insult them instead.
Tsukishima, still not fully able to deal with the situation, just stutters and huffs, seeming rather like a lost puppy to an outsider's eyes.
Akiteru, having received an email from Kuroo the night before asking for help with the plan, peeks out of his parents' bedroom window to see how his little brother is coping. The sight he sees is heart-warming, the four of them affectionately teasing each other as they pull away from the hug, something he never thought he'd witness his brother engaging in. As he watches the younger Tsukishima reluctantly invite the three inside, Akiteru smiles and retreats behind the curtains, heading back downstairs to greet them.
All he can say is that he's glad his brother has found someone, or several someones, that make him happy.