Ship/Character: Kuroo/Tsukishima/Hinata/Kenma Fandom: Haikyuu!! Major Tags: None Other Tags: amusement park dates, first dates, miscommunication, humor hopefully Word Count: 2290 Remix Permission: sure
THIS GOT SO LONG AND RIDICULOUS BUT I HOPE IT IS AT LEAST ENJOYABLE (also on AO3 here)
***
Sweat trickles down the back of Kuroo’s neck, and he lifts his folded park map up to shield his eyes from the midday sun. His head is sweaty under his R2D2 Mickey ears, but he refuses to take it off.
“I think I’m going to buy some frozen lemonade,” he says. “Does anyone want some frozen lemonade?”
“Yes!” Hinata says, shooting his hand up and waving.
“Mm,” Kenma says. He’s playing a game on his phone, and anyone else might have thought he didn’t even hear what Kuroo said. However, Kenma has trained in the art of tuning into the world just enough to hear Kuroo and no one else, and Kuroo has trained in the art of parsing Kenma’s hums and monosyllabic non-words.
Long story short, that’s a no.
“I’d like strawberry lemonade, please,” Tsukishima says, linking his fingers together in front of him. He still oscillates between snarky and polite with Kuroo, unable to decide which to stick with. Lately, he’s been more on the side of polite, unless Kuroo does something to deliberately provoke a reaction from him.
“Two OG lemonades and one strawberry lemonade, got it!” Kuroo says cheerfully. “Anyone want to come with me? Shrimpy, what about you? Okay, great, let’s go!” he says, and drags Hinata by the arm out of the line.
Tsukishima watches them go. He adjusts the Minnie Mouse ears Kuroo coerced him into wearing and ignores the flutter in his stomach when he remembers how Kuroo called him cute. He’s a six-foot tall high schooler; Kuroo has no business calling him cute. But he’s been doing it a lot today, and even Hinata is agreeing, which is just plain weird.
Tsukishima is actually not as averse to Hinata calling him cute as he thought he would be, but he’s definitely not prepared to unpack that right now.
“Aren’t those two acting strangely today?” he asks Kenma.
Kenma actually looks up from his phone, which in itself could be a dire comment on the situation. “I think so, too,” he says. Hinata especially; Kenma’s known Kuroo all his life and he does weird stuff sometimes, but Hinata keeps looking at him meaningfully.
It’s like Hinata and Kuroo are in on some sort of joke, and they expect Kenma to get it, but he missed the punchline.
“What are they scheming,” Tsukishima muses.
Kenma thinks for a minute, comes up short, and shrugs and goes back to his game. If they’re acting weird, it must be for a reason, and they’ll explain sooner or later. Hinata’s not the type to keep secrets, and Kuroo—well, Kuroo has no reason to keep secrets from him, either. That’s what he likes about them. They keep him in the loop. He doesn’t have to second-guess himself around them.
Tsukishima sighs and watches Kenma play. He’s not content to just let the topic rest, but it’s not like he has much to go on.
All Tsukishima and Kenma know is this: Kuroo and Hinata invited them to go to Tokyo Disney together today.
Kuroo and Hinata know one additional, crucial detail: This is a date.
Kuroo has just realized, while standing in the line for Space Mountain, that Tsukishima and Kenma have no idea that they’re on a date, and he says as much as he and Hinata line up at a frozen lemonade cart.
“Dude, Tsukki and Kenma don’t know this is a date.”
“What do you mean they don’t know?” Hinata asks. “We asked them out!”
“I should have known Kenma wouldn’t realize,” Kuroo says, pushing exasperated fingers into his hair. “That boy only experiences romance vicariously through dating sims and never actually thinks about dating himself. We’ve been on too many friend-dates. I’ve been jokingly romantic too many times that he doesn’t realize I mean it this time. I played myself.” His groan cuts off as he realizes something, and he looks at Hinata. “But surely Tsukki can’t be that dense. What did you say to him?”
“I told him to come with me and you and Kenma to Tokyo Disney, of course,” Hinata says.
“But did you state any romantic intent at all?” Kuroo asks, leaning down and looking Hinata in the eyes very seriously. “Did you inform him that this was a romantic outing?”
“Well, not directly, but… Come on, that’s kinda embarrassing!” Hinata says. “I figured he would get it.”
The frozen lemonade line inches forward.
“He does not get it,” Kuroo says. “They do not get it. How do we get them to get it?”
“Just tell them when we get back, I guess,” Hinata says, pulling out his wallet to count his change.
“No, no, I don’t want to embarrass them,” Kuroo says. “They have to figure it out without figuring out that we know that they don’t know.”
“What.”
“Then they’ll pretend that they knew all along, because they’re that type of people, and we will act none the wiser, and everything will be perfect!”
“What,” Hinata says again.
Kuroo ruffles his hair. Hinata has very ruffle-able hair. Not to mention, he’s the perfect height for it. He often finds himself thinking about Tsukishima’s hair, too, because it also looks soft and ruffle-able, but he’s too tall to do it comfortably. Kenma could have soft hair if he would actually wash it regularly instead of playing video games until he knocks out.
“Don’t worry about it, Shrimpy. Just leave the planning to me.”
It takes some effort, but Kuroo manages to not think about his (hopeful) boyfriends’ hair and how much he wants to run his fingers through them, and instead formulate a plan of attack. By the time they’re shouldering their way back through the Space Mountain line, they’re ready.
The plan is this: Kuroo and Hinata will kiss each other in front of Kenma and Tsukishima. Kuroo’s original plan was for Hinata to kiss Kenma while he kissed Tsukishima, and then maybe switch, but he didn’t want to spring physical affection on them without warning. This new plan will unquestionably demonstrate romantic intentions while avoiding potentially making the clueless party uncomfortable. Hinata is willing to roll with any idea and figures Kuroo is smarter and more experienced with this stuff, so he readily agrees.
While they’ve been gone, Kenma and Tsukishima haven’t done much: Kenma’s still playing the same game, and Tsukishima has downloaded it on his phone and now he’s playing, too.
Tsukishima is distracted, though; while Kenma has decided to just wait for an explanation, Tsukishima is still caught up on how weird Kuroo and Hinata are acting today. Kuroo is unpredictable at the best of times, so it’s not exactly surprising, but there’s still something off about today. His cheesy lines and awful flirting are coming on even stronger than usual, and sometimes he’ll say things that don’t really make sense as a joke but definitely don’t make sense seriously, unless they’re on, like…a date or something. Which definitely isn’t the case. And Tsukishima can usually read Hinata like a book, so it’s definitely off-putting that he can’t tell what a simpleton like Hinata is thinking.
“Heya, did you miss us?” Kuroo asks, sidling up beside Tsukishima and Kenma. He’s holding his frozen lemonade and the frozen strawberry lemonade for Tsukishima.
Tsukishima tucks his phone into his pocket and accepts his frozen strawberry lemonade from Kuroo. “Not particularly,” he says.
“Well, I missed you,” Kuroo says, “every second we were apart.”
Kuroo has been saying stuff like this all day. Tsukishima doesn’t know how to react, besides with, “Um, okay.”
“Kenma, can you hold mine and Kuroo-san’s frozen lemonades for a sec?” Hinata asks.
“Why?” he asks, but he complies, also putting his phone away.
Kuroo looks at Hinata, and Hinata looks at Kuroo, and they nod in agreement and step towards each other. Even with Hinata on his tiptoes, Kuroo has to bend down to kiss him. Hinata anchors himself Kuroo’s shirt, and Kuroo cups Hinata’s face.
Kuroo’s stomach does a flip because this is their first time kissing, but Hinata yanks away. “Kuroo-san, your hands are cold and wet from the frozen lemonade!”
“Oops, sorry,” Kuroo says. He wipes his hands frantically on his pants, then holds them out for Hinata to evaluate. “Better?”
“I guess,” Hinata says.
They try again, both watching from the corners of their eyes to see if Kenma and Tsukishima are looking.
They are, but they are both confused.
“What are you doing?” Kenma asks.
“Congratulations, I guess?” Tsukishima says.
In truth, there’s some hurt and jealousy pooling in their stomachs that they can’t parse. Who are they jealous of, exactly, and what right do they have to feel hurt?
But neither Kenma or Tsukishima are dwelling on it; their confusion outweighs the unhappy feelings, because Kuroo and Hinata are noticeably more concerned about checking Kenma and Tsukishima’s reactions than actually kissing each other.
Hinata drops to the flat of his feet and crosses his arms. “It’s not working.” He pouts up at Kuroo, because he’s supposed to be the ones with the answers, and then he turns his pout to Kenma and Tsukishima, because why don’t they get it?
“I guess I’m not too surprised,” Tsukishima says, “but did you have to bring us along?”
Kuroo blinks. He was so caught up in making sure today could happen—a day off, no club activities, no other plans with their families—that he forgot to consider that maybe not everyone wanted this.
He considers himself to be good at reading people, was so sure that Kenma and Tsukishima liked him and Hinata back, but maybe this time, when it mattered the most, he assumed wrong.
“Did you… not want to come?” he asks. His voice comes out smaller than he intended, but there’s an unbidden lump in his throat. He was so, so excited for today.
“Well, it’s fine hanging out together, but if you wanted it to be a date, it’s kind of awkward with me and Kenma here, right?”
A date without Tsukishima and Kenma?
“But what about you and Kenma!” Hinata blurts. How could they expect him and Kuroo to leave them behind?
“Us?” Kenma asks. His eyes are wide. “I don’t—”
“We’re not—” Tsukishima says.
They look at each other. Tsukishima likes Kenma, of course he does, and Kenma likes Tsukishima. They’re both quiet and clever and they like hanging out and playing video games together. Kuroo and Hinata are both loud and outgoing, and together Kenma and Tsukishima can balance them out, convince them that sometimes a chill movie night sleepover is better than five games of laser tag in a row.
But just the two of them together, without Hinata and Kuroo—that doesn’t sit right with either of them. They only got here because of Hinata and Kuroo. Kenma would come visit Hinata in Miyagi, and Kuroo would sometimes accompany him because Kenma didn’t like riding the train alone, and sometimes Kuroo would seek Tsukishima out to hang out with, and then they started hanging out, all four of them. Sure, after that sometimes Hinata would hang out with Kuroo and Tsukishima with Kenma, but they’d started this thing together.
“We’re not together,” Tsukishima says, finally.
“But do you want to be?” Hinata presses, because he’s done beating around the bush. “You and me and Kenma and Kuroo-san.”
Kenma and Tsukishima stare at him, and the missing piece of information finally clicks.
“Wait, all four of us?” Kenma asks.
“All of us, together?” Tsukishima says.
“AAAHH!” Kuroo shouts suddenly, and everyone jumps, except Hinata also shouts in surprise, and everyone jumps again.
“Sorry,” Kuroo says. “I thought you got it, but you didn’t it! You didn’t get it! I thought you were rejecting us, but you just didn’t get it!”
“Thank you,” Tsukishima says.
“You’re not third and fourth wheels. I mean—you are, but not in the sense that like— What’s this metaphor even about? A relationship is a bike, I guess?” Kuroo frowns for a moment, but no one says anything, so he barrels on, “You’re not extraneous wheels, and you’re not a separate bike. You are both very essential wheels on our four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle of love.”
“What,” Kenma says.
“What,” Tsukishima says.
“You’re so cool and romantic, Kuroo-san!” Hinata exclaims, jumping up and down. “Hear that, you two? We’re a vehicle of love.”
“I’m so tired,” Tsukishima says.
“Me too,” Kenma says. “How much longer is this line?”
“But will you go out with us?” Kuroo asks.
“Yeah, yeah!” Hinata says. “Please? We really like you.”
Tsukishima and Kenma exchange another look. Tsukishima has butterflies in his stomach right now, but he would die before admitting it. Kenma—Kenma’s happy, but he needs to process this. Actually, he needs to mindlessly play a game on his phone for a bit, and then he’ll be able to process it. He’s a little bit on overload right now.
But he’s happy, really.
Kenma ducks his head. “I think I would like that.”
Kuroo and Hinata turn eagerly to Tsukishima, and he fights back a startled blush.
“Well…” If Kuroo and Hinata had always intended for today to be a date, then… “We’re already going out,” he says with a shrug.
Hinata cheers. Kuroo can tell Tsukishima is only acting cool, but he’s not going to call him out on it. He’s just happy it all worked out despite the hiccups.
Besides, there are more important things to think about, like how they should pose for their picture when they finally get to ride Space Mountain.
He almost shouts again as he realizes that there are exactly four of them.
“Hey guys,” Kuroo says, “now that’s sorted out, do you all know what ‘loss’ is?”
FILL: Team Grandstand, G
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Major Tags: None
Other Tags: amusement park dates, first dates, miscommunication, humor hopefully
Word Count: 2290
Remix Permission: sure
THIS GOT SO LONG AND RIDICULOUS BUT I HOPE IT IS AT LEAST ENJOYABLE (also on AO3 here)
***
Sweat trickles down the back of Kuroo’s neck, and he lifts his folded park map up to shield his eyes from the midday sun. His head is sweaty under his R2D2 Mickey ears, but he refuses to take it off.
“I think I’m going to buy some frozen lemonade,” he says. “Does anyone want some frozen lemonade?”
“Yes!” Hinata says, shooting his hand up and waving.
“Mm,” Kenma says. He’s playing a game on his phone, and anyone else might have thought he didn’t even hear what Kuroo said. However, Kenma has trained in the art of tuning into the world just enough to hear Kuroo and no one else, and Kuroo has trained in the art of parsing Kenma’s hums and monosyllabic non-words.
Long story short, that’s a no.
“I’d like strawberry lemonade, please,” Tsukishima says, linking his fingers together in front of him. He still oscillates between snarky and polite with Kuroo, unable to decide which to stick with. Lately, he’s been more on the side of polite, unless Kuroo does something to deliberately provoke a reaction from him.
“Two OG lemonades and one strawberry lemonade, got it!” Kuroo says cheerfully. “Anyone want to come with me? Shrimpy, what about you? Okay, great, let’s go!” he says, and drags Hinata by the arm out of the line.
Tsukishima watches them go. He adjusts the Minnie Mouse ears Kuroo coerced him into wearing and ignores the flutter in his stomach when he remembers how Kuroo called him cute. He’s a six-foot tall high schooler; Kuroo has no business calling him cute. But he’s been doing it a lot today, and even Hinata is agreeing, which is just plain weird.
Tsukishima is actually not as averse to Hinata calling him cute as he thought he would be, but he’s definitely not prepared to unpack that right now.
“Aren’t those two acting strangely today?” he asks Kenma.
Kenma actually looks up from his phone, which in itself could be a dire comment on the situation. “I think so, too,” he says. Hinata especially; Kenma’s known Kuroo all his life and he does weird stuff sometimes, but Hinata keeps looking at him meaningfully.
It’s like Hinata and Kuroo are in on some sort of joke, and they expect Kenma to get it, but he missed the punchline.
“What are they scheming,” Tsukishima muses.
Kenma thinks for a minute, comes up short, and shrugs and goes back to his game. If they’re acting weird, it must be for a reason, and they’ll explain sooner or later. Hinata’s not the type to keep secrets, and Kuroo—well, Kuroo has no reason to keep secrets from him, either. That’s what he likes about them. They keep him in the loop. He doesn’t have to second-guess himself around them.
Tsukishima sighs and watches Kenma play. He’s not content to just let the topic rest, but it’s not like he has much to go on.
All Tsukishima and Kenma know is this: Kuroo and Hinata invited them to go to Tokyo Disney together today.
Kuroo and Hinata know one additional, crucial detail: This is a date.
Kuroo has just realized, while standing in the line for Space Mountain, that Tsukishima and Kenma have no idea that they’re on a date, and he says as much as he and Hinata line up at a frozen lemonade cart.
“Dude, Tsukki and Kenma don’t know this is a date.”
“What do you mean they don’t know?” Hinata asks. “We asked them out!”
“I should have known Kenma wouldn’t realize,” Kuroo says, pushing exasperated fingers into his hair. “That boy only experiences romance vicariously through dating sims and never actually thinks about dating himself. We’ve been on too many friend-dates. I’ve been jokingly romantic too many times that he doesn’t realize I mean it this time. I played myself.” His groan cuts off as he realizes something, and he looks at Hinata. “But surely Tsukki can’t be that dense. What did you say to him?”
“I told him to come with me and you and Kenma to Tokyo Disney, of course,” Hinata says.
“But did you state any romantic intent at all?” Kuroo asks, leaning down and looking Hinata in the eyes very seriously. “Did you inform him that this was a romantic outing?”
“Well, not directly, but… Come on, that’s kinda embarrassing!” Hinata says. “I figured he would get it.”
The frozen lemonade line inches forward.
“He does not get it,” Kuroo says. “They do not get it. How do we get them to get it?”
“Just tell them when we get back, I guess,” Hinata says, pulling out his wallet to count his change.
“No, no, I don’t want to embarrass them,” Kuroo says. “They have to figure it out without figuring out that we know that they don’t know.”
“What.”
“Then they’ll pretend that they knew all along, because they’re that type of people, and we will act none the wiser, and everything will be perfect!”
“What,” Hinata says again.
Kuroo ruffles his hair. Hinata has very ruffle-able hair. Not to mention, he’s the perfect height for it. He often finds himself thinking about Tsukishima’s hair, too, because it also looks soft and ruffle-able, but he’s too tall to do it comfortably. Kenma could have soft hair if he would actually wash it regularly instead of playing video games until he knocks out.
“Don’t worry about it, Shrimpy. Just leave the planning to me.”
It takes some effort, but Kuroo manages to not think about his (hopeful) boyfriends’ hair and how much he wants to run his fingers through them, and instead formulate a plan of attack. By the time they’re shouldering their way back through the Space Mountain line, they’re ready.
The plan is this: Kuroo and Hinata will kiss each other in front of Kenma and Tsukishima. Kuroo’s original plan was for Hinata to kiss Kenma while he kissed Tsukishima, and then maybe switch, but he didn’t want to spring physical affection on them without warning. This new plan will unquestionably demonstrate romantic intentions while avoiding potentially making the clueless party uncomfortable. Hinata is willing to roll with any idea and figures Kuroo is smarter and more experienced with this stuff, so he readily agrees.
While they’ve been gone, Kenma and Tsukishima haven’t done much: Kenma’s still playing the same game, and Tsukishima has downloaded it on his phone and now he’s playing, too.
Tsukishima is distracted, though; while Kenma has decided to just wait for an explanation, Tsukishima is still caught up on how weird Kuroo and Hinata are acting today. Kuroo is unpredictable at the best of times, so it’s not exactly surprising, but there’s still something off about today. His cheesy lines and awful flirting are coming on even stronger than usual, and sometimes he’ll say things that don’t really make sense as a joke but definitely don’t make sense seriously, unless they’re on, like…a date or something. Which definitely isn’t the case. And Tsukishima can usually read Hinata like a book, so it’s definitely off-putting that he can’t tell what a simpleton like Hinata is thinking.
“Heya, did you miss us?” Kuroo asks, sidling up beside Tsukishima and Kenma. He’s holding his frozen lemonade and the frozen strawberry lemonade for Tsukishima.
Tsukishima tucks his phone into his pocket and accepts his frozen strawberry lemonade from Kuroo. “Not particularly,” he says.
“Well, I missed you,” Kuroo says, “every second we were apart.”
Kuroo has been saying stuff like this all day. Tsukishima doesn’t know how to react, besides with, “Um, okay.”
“Kenma, can you hold mine and Kuroo-san’s frozen lemonades for a sec?” Hinata asks.
“Why?” he asks, but he complies, also putting his phone away.
Kuroo looks at Hinata, and Hinata looks at Kuroo, and they nod in agreement and step towards each other. Even with Hinata on his tiptoes, Kuroo has to bend down to kiss him. Hinata anchors himself Kuroo’s shirt, and Kuroo cups Hinata’s face.
Kuroo’s stomach does a flip because this is their first time kissing, but Hinata yanks away. “Kuroo-san, your hands are cold and wet from the frozen lemonade!”
“Oops, sorry,” Kuroo says. He wipes his hands frantically on his pants, then holds them out for Hinata to evaluate. “Better?”
“I guess,” Hinata says.
They try again, both watching from the corners of their eyes to see if Kenma and Tsukishima are looking.
They are, but they are both confused.
“What are you doing?” Kenma asks.
“Congratulations, I guess?” Tsukishima says.
In truth, there’s some hurt and jealousy pooling in their stomachs that they can’t parse. Who are they jealous of, exactly, and what right do they have to feel hurt?
But neither Kenma or Tsukishima are dwelling on it; their confusion outweighs the unhappy feelings, because Kuroo and Hinata are noticeably more concerned about checking Kenma and Tsukishima’s reactions than actually kissing each other.
Hinata drops to the flat of his feet and crosses his arms. “It’s not working.” He pouts up at Kuroo, because he’s supposed to be the ones with the answers, and then he turns his pout to Kenma and Tsukishima, because why don’t they get it?
“I guess I’m not too surprised,” Tsukishima says, “but did you have to bring us along?”
Kuroo blinks. He was so caught up in making sure today could happen—a day off, no club activities, no other plans with their families—that he forgot to consider that maybe not everyone wanted this.
He considers himself to be good at reading people, was so sure that Kenma and Tsukishima liked him and Hinata back, but maybe this time, when it mattered the most, he assumed wrong.
“Did you… not want to come?” he asks. His voice comes out smaller than he intended, but there’s an unbidden lump in his throat. He was so, so excited for today.
“Well, it’s fine hanging out together, but if you wanted it to be a date, it’s kind of awkward with me and Kenma here, right?”
A date without Tsukishima and Kenma?
“But what about you and Kenma!” Hinata blurts. How could they expect him and Kuroo to leave them behind?
“Us?” Kenma asks. His eyes are wide. “I don’t—”
“We’re not—” Tsukishima says.
They look at each other. Tsukishima likes Kenma, of course he does, and Kenma likes Tsukishima. They’re both quiet and clever and they like hanging out and playing video games together. Kuroo and Hinata are both loud and outgoing, and together Kenma and Tsukishima can balance them out, convince them that sometimes a chill movie night sleepover is better than five games of laser tag in a row.
But just the two of them together, without Hinata and Kuroo—that doesn’t sit right with either of them. They only got here because of Hinata and Kuroo. Kenma would come visit Hinata in Miyagi, and Kuroo would sometimes accompany him because Kenma didn’t like riding the train alone, and sometimes Kuroo would seek Tsukishima out to hang out with, and then they started hanging out, all four of them. Sure, after that sometimes Hinata would hang out with Kuroo and Tsukishima with Kenma, but they’d started this thing together.
“We’re not together,” Tsukishima says, finally.
“But do you want to be?” Hinata presses, because he’s done beating around the bush. “You and me and Kenma and Kuroo-san.”
Kenma and Tsukishima stare at him, and the missing piece of information finally clicks.
“Wait, all four of us?” Kenma asks.
“All of us, together?” Tsukishima says.
“AAAHH!” Kuroo shouts suddenly, and everyone jumps, except Hinata also shouts in surprise, and everyone jumps again.
“Sorry,” Kuroo says. “I thought you got it, but you didn’t it! You didn’t get it! I thought you were rejecting us, but you just didn’t get it!”
“Thank you,” Tsukishima says.
“You’re not third and fourth wheels. I mean—you are, but not in the sense that like— What’s this metaphor even about? A relationship is a bike, I guess?” Kuroo frowns for a moment, but no one says anything, so he barrels on, “You’re not extraneous wheels, and you’re not a separate bike. You are both very essential wheels on our four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle of love.”
“What,” Kenma says.
“What,” Tsukishima says.
“You’re so cool and romantic, Kuroo-san!” Hinata exclaims, jumping up and down. “Hear that, you two? We’re a vehicle of love.”
“I’m so tired,” Tsukishima says.
“Me too,” Kenma says. “How much longer is this line?”
“But will you go out with us?” Kuroo asks.
“Yeah, yeah!” Hinata says. “Please? We really like you.”
Tsukishima and Kenma exchange another look. Tsukishima has butterflies in his stomach right now, but he would die before admitting it. Kenma—Kenma’s happy, but he needs to process this. Actually, he needs to mindlessly play a game on his phone for a bit, and then he’ll be able to process it. He’s a little bit on overload right now.
But he’s happy, really.
Kenma ducks his head. “I think I would like that.”
Kuroo and Hinata turn eagerly to Tsukishima, and he fights back a startled blush.
“Well…” If Kuroo and Hinata had always intended for today to be a date, then… “We’re already going out,” he says with a shrug.
Hinata cheers. Kuroo can tell Tsukishima is only acting cool, but he’s not going to call him out on it. He’s just happy it all worked out despite the hiccups.
Besides, there are more important things to think about, like how they should pose for their picture when they finally get to ride Space Mountain.
He almost shouts again as he realizes that there are exactly four of them.
“Hey guys,” Kuroo says, “now that’s sorted out, do you all know what ‘loss’ is?”