The cockatoo-haired boy from next door knocked on her door later in the morning the following day. He returned her handkerchief and didn't bother her for the rest of the summer. There was no more practicing volleyball against the wall of her bedroom, there was no fear when she walked home from the corner mart. The rest of her summer consisted of reading and watching shows. On rare occasions, she called or texted her boyfriend. On even rarer occasions, he texted her first. Ai didn't let this bother her. She had more pressing matters on her plate.

It was her first day of school at Nekoma High. The first day is always the hardest, especially when you transfer into school halfway into the second year. She exited her apartment, bringing with her the lunchbox her mother had made for her.

Ai was extremely nervous, she had woken up terribly early to put on makeup and mentally prepare herself for the day ahead of her. Her long, black hair was woven into a braided crown that met a loose bun at the nape of her neck. The sailor uniform was different from the suit-style uniform she was used to, but Ai didn't mind.

Kuroo and Kenma emerged from a side street as she walked to school. For a while, they walked in silence. "So, no morning practices?" She asked, trying to break the tension a bit. She had been minorly obsessing over the fact that both of the boys in her neighborhood, especially her weird neighbor, went to her school.

"Yeah, first day back to school and all, Coach gave us the morning off," Kuroo responded.

"That's fun."

"Yeah." He looked over at her for a second before returning his gaze straight ahead. "So what year are you in?"

"Second."

"Oh, just like Kenma!"

Kenma looked up at the mention of his name, "Ohno Ai". She introduced herself, sticking out her hand, he looked to the side before muttering.

"Kozume Kenma."

Ai bowed courteously. "Please take care of me. Kozume-san?"

"Uh, yeah." Kenma fidgeted with his PSP before looking back at her, "You can call me Kenma."

"Cool." She said, and the conversation ended again.

****

Ai walked home from school alone most days, since Kuroo and Kenma had volleyball practice. There was so much she now had to process. Her classroom was the one next to Kenma's, though she never really saw much of him. Everyone was interested in the new girl. However, her allure was beginning to wear off. She had some people who you could consider friends, but she wasn't all that close with them.

She checked her phone out of habit. No new notifications. It had been well over a week since her boyfriend had last texted her back. She stopped sending messages after the eighth day. It was the thirteenth day. Ai decided, as she walked home, she would break up with him if he didn't contact her by midnight. She felt needy, but even if her boyfriend responded, would she be satisfied?

She spent a slow evening of tidying the house. She wiped down all of the counters and dusted the shelves. She scrubbed the toilet until it practically sparkled. She ate leftovers for dinner and packed lunches for her mother and herself.

By ten o'clock, she decided to take her bath. She soaked luxuriously in the newly-scrubbed tub. She worked her hair into a rich lather and took her time applying all sorts of lotions and creams. After she dried her hair, she returned to her bedroom and checked her phone. No new notifications.

Ai divided her hair and braided it into two plaits. After a half hour of reading, she picked up her phone. It was only eleven, but Ai dialed her boyfriend's phone number. He picked up after the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey." She realized that she didn't know what to say. It would have been too easy to simply say her piece and hang up. Ai couldn't do that. After all, he had been her boyfriend for nearly two years.

"What's up, how are you?" His voice sounded as dull as the last time she had spoken to him.

"I am fine." She let out a sigh. "Actually, I am not great. That's why I wanted to call you."

"Oh? What's wrong?"

"Let's break up."

"What?"

"We never see each other, we never talk, and I don't want to do this anymore. Let's break up."

"Okay, if that's what you really want?"

"Okay, goodbye."

"Wait, are we still friends?"

Ai paused for a moment, entertaining the idea for a while before she answered. "Sure." She didn't know whether she meant it or not.

"Cool." Ai hung up on him.

****

If she was being honest, Ai expected to feel more hurt and outraged about breaking up with her boyfriend. Everything around her in her life more or less stayed the same. It was almost as if the relationship hadn't happened at all in the first place. Still, every night when she went to bed alone, she felt the void creep up. In the dark, she couldn't focus on anything other than how utterly alone and helpless she was.

She went to school and did her work. She ate lunch with friends and walked home alone. Sometimes she stopped by the supermarket to pick up groceries on her way home.

Her life was monotonous and boring.

Then one night the disturbance returned.

Thud, thud, thud.

Ai was in the middle of cleaning up dinner with her mother when Kuroo decided to start tossing his volleyball against the wall again.

"What's that noise?" Her mother asked.

"Just a nuisance, I will take care of it," Ai growled.

She stomped out of the apartment and rapped her knuckles against the door to her neighbor's apartment.

"Good evening, Ai-chan, how can I help you?" The volleyball captain asked, grinning like the cat that just ate the canary. Her stomach fluttered in agitation.

"You know exactly why I am here, Kuroo-san."

"Hmm? What could that be?"

"Quit banging on the walls! My mother got off work early and she needs her rest!" Ai put her hands on her hips and glared up at him.

"Sorry, my bad. But I don't know any other way to get you to come out and talk to me."

"If that was the matter, you could have just asked for my number." Ai huffed, rolling her green eyes at him.

"Yeah." Kuroo leaned against the doorframe and pulled out his phone expectantly, he looked obnoxiously amused.

Ai rattled off her number quickly. "If that's all, I am going to go back into my apartment. Do not disturb me."

****

Ai regretted giving Kuroo her number. He texted her nearly every day. He asked for her social media, which she was reluctant to give out. Eventually, she gave him her Snapchat, but only because she rarely ever posted anything on her story. He was adamant about having a streak with Ai. He would send pictures during breaks at volleyball practice, and after matches when he was walking home, and even sent candid pictures of Kenma at lunchtime.

Rarely would Ai respond. She got the feeling that she had let some sort of invasive species into her life. Kuroo would always be there, slowly encroaching on her life. Ai had never been terribly extroverted, not that Kuroo ever paid any mind to that. It wasn't that Ai was anti-social, rather she simply tended to not interact with people who hadn't interacted with her first.

Her phone pinged while she was studying for a Chemistry test.

Kuroo: Do you want to watch a movie with my friends and me on Sunday?

Ai: Why?

Kuroo: Because you are always at home. You're gonna rot if you don't take in the fresh air sometimes.

Ai: Then let me rot!

Kuroo: I will meet you outside at nine tomorrow.

****

Something inside of Ai told her that Kuroo wouldn't give up. She was right, he was persistent, and aggravatingly so. At nine on the dot, there was a pounding on the door. Ai's mother was just waking up and making herself a fresh pot of coffee. "Who could that be?"

"A pest."

Ai opened the door fully dressed in a long-sleeved white cropped sweater and a pair of high-waisted floral shorts, as well as a green ribbon in her hair. She had makeup on and her crossbody purse was already slung across her shoulder.

"Great! You're already ready!" Kuroo remarked. He was wearing a black and white Adidas tee shirt and a pair of black jeans.

"Why must you bother me on my only day off?" She sat down on the stoop to put on a pair of brown wedge sandals. She glared up at him and his stupid, shit-eating grin.

"Honey, who's at the door?" Ai's mother called from the kitchen.

"A classmate, I am heading out now," Ai responded, brushing some hair off her shoulder.

"But I was going to make us pancakes." Her mother walked over to the door while wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "Oh." She said as soon as she laid her eyes on Kuroo. "Please take care of my daughter." She was smiling slyly.

"Don't get the wrong idea, mother." Ai rolled her green eyes before standing up, "it's not like that." She found herself explaining even though it didn't really matter.

"Yes, yes, now don't come back too late, Ai-chan."

****

"When you told me that we'd be going to the movies with your friends, I was thinking it would be Kenma." Ai motioned to the two other boys who were standing in line ahead of them at the cinema.

"Bokuto and Akaashi don't bite," Kuroo grinned, "besides, a new game came out today and Kenma couldn't make it."

Ai crossed her arms and shifted her weight on her left leg. "So I am just your last resort, huh Kuroo?" She goaded.

"Oooh she dropped the formalities, Kuroo's in trouble." The feathery haired boy bellowed.

"Please be quiet, Bokuto-san." The beautiful, composed boy sighed.

"It's not like that."

"Mhmm," Ai hummed, turning away from him, taking pleasure in making Kuroo look stupid, "I see exactly how it is." She walked in front of Kuroo in line and started up a conversation with the other two boys.

She found out that they both went to Fukurodani and that they were both on the volleyball team. They told her stories about training camps while they waited in line. She sat in between them in the theatre.

Truth be told, Ai didn't know what movie they were going to see until it was already up on the screen. It turned out to be a horror movie. Ai didn't like horror movies all that much. It wasn't because they frightened her, more so the opposite. Horror movies didn't scare Ai in the least bit. She sat there, unflinchingly as grotesque images flashed upon the screen.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ai could see Kuroo looking over to see her reactions. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Bokuto, on the other hand, seemed like he would shit his pants at any given moment. "Are you okay, Bokuto-san?" She whispered.

"Yeah, I am fine, perfectly fine!" He said a little too loudly. "Why wouldn't I be fine?" He clearly wasn't fine.

There was a round of shushing from those in the seats around them. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. "Well I am scared, do you mind if I hold your hand?"

Bokuto looked down at her, she put on a mask of mock fear. "Well, I suppose I could since you're so scared." His voice was swollen with confidence.

"Thank you, that's very manly of you." You praised.

Throughout the rest of the movie, when a particularly scary scene came on, Bokuto would squeeze Ai's hand lightly.

She glanced over at Kuroo periodically, and when she caught his eye, she gave him a cheeky smile. Whenever he looked at her hand interlocked with his friend's Ai would stick her tongue out, like the child she was.

****

After the movie, the four of them went to McDonald's. Ai took in a breath of greasy potatoes and salt. The place was packed and noisy with the sounds of conversations and the high whines of the machines behind the counter. "Kuroo has told us a lot about you," Bokuto said once Kuroo had gone up to get the food.

"Are you his girlfriend?" The white-haired ace asked nosily.

"No," she responded quickly, "absolutely not!" She shook her head. Her stomach buzzed, it was urgent that she deny the prospect of dating.

"Then what are you to him, if you don't mind me asking," Akaashi said politely. Ai liked that Akaashi had more tact.

"He's my neighbor," Ai paused, "and we go to the same school." Kuroo returned to the table. "We are barely even friends."

"That hurts my feelings, Ai-chan~," Kuroo said, pretended to be wounded. Kuroo distributed the food and Ai began to carry on a conversation with Akaashi. When she looked back over at the two other boys, Kuroo had two french fries protruding from his top lip like a walrus, and Bokuto looked at her dumbly with a french fry sticking halfway out of his nose. When he notices she was looking, he snorted the french fry out of his nose and onto his tray.

She sipped her milkshake and continued her conversation with Akaashi. Her fingers tapped on the plastic lid as she spoke, a smile curved on her red-tinted lips. She enjoyed having a civil conversation with. They exchanged stories that were neither shallow nor too personal. Just when she was enjoying herself, there was a disturbance, or more like the disturbance ended, causing a red flag to raise in Ai's mind. Bokuto and Kuroo were laughing obnoxiously loud. When the two stopped abruptly, both Akaashi and Ai whipped their heads to see what was up.

"Bro," Bokuto said, his face going completely slack. There were french fries hanging out of Kuroo's mouth. "I had those up my nose, remember?" Ai was mortified.