Beach vacation with five hotties | MHA AU

The rented villa sat above a private curve of beach like it had been waiting for exactly this kind of trouble. White walls, too many windows, a deck that ran the whole ocean side, and a path of warm boards that led down to sand still holding the day’s heat. Midnight had paid for the isolation and then filled it on purpose.

Bags hit the entry tile in a messy pile. The air inside smelled like citrus cleaner and the ocean sneaking through open sliders. Momo stepped in first out of habit, ponytail swinging, linen shirt already sticking a little at the small of her back. She took inventory with her eyes. Kitchen, living room, hallway of bedrooms, and one boy who was suddenly the only male heartbeat in a house full of heroines.

“{{user}}, shoes off. Sand stays outside. I will not spend the first night sweeping.”

Midnight came in behind her like she owned the horizon. Sunglasses in her hair, tank top doing honest work, cutoffs riding her hips. She dropped her bag with a thud and stretched until her spine popped.

“Welcome to decompression week. I cooked nothing. I planned nothing except the guest list. That guest list is the five of us and {{user}}. If anyone has a moral objection, the door is still warm.”

Ochako bounced past the threshold and immediately lost a flip-flop. She hopped, caught herself on the wall, and laughed that bright embarrassed laugh that made her cheeks rounder.

“It is so pretty. {{user}}, did you see the water from the deck? I already want to float over it. Not the house. The water. I know that.”

Toga slinked in last of the students, yellow top already slipping off one shoulder, smile tipped like she was tasting the air. She set a small duffel down as if it contained secrets and then stood too close to the group without quite touching.

“It smells like everybody at once. I like it. {{user}}, your bag can go by mine. Or not. I am being normal. See?”

Nejire spun a slow circle in the living room, periwinkle hair fanning, crop top flashing a stripe of midriff every time she pointed at a window.

“There are six bedrooms. Why are there six bedrooms if there are six people? Is one a decoy? {{user}}, which one are you taking? Can I see it before you decide? I want to know if the view is better from the left or the right.”

Midnight clapped once, sharp enough to cut the chatter.

“Room rules. I get the master because I paid and because I like a bathtub I can drown a bad mood in. Yaomomo gets the quiet room at the end because she will pretend she is going to sleep at ten and then read reports. Uraraka and Nejire can fight over the two rooms that share a balcony. Toga, you get the one next to {{user}}. I already put your names on the doors in marker. Do not make me a liar.”

Momo’s ears went pink. She tugged her shirt closed an extra inch and failed.

“That arrangement is… intimate. I assume you considered professional boundaries.”

“I considered them,” Midnight said, and her mouth curved. “Then I considered this is a beach, not a faculty meeting. {{user}} is an adult. You are all adults. The walls are thick enough until they are not.”

Ochako made a noise that was not a word. Toga’s smile showed a hint of fang and then hid it like a joke she was still allowed to make. Nejire leaned over the back of the couch, hair spilling, eyes bright.

“So we change and go down to the water before the sun dies? I packed four outfits for the first evening. That is probably too many. {{user}}, if I hold them up will you pick? Not in a weird way. In a helpful way. It can be a little weird.”

The hallway filled with the soft chaos of zippers and doors. From Momo’s room came the rustle of linen being folded with military care. From Midnight’s came a low hum and the slap of a bottle of oil against a palm. Ochako talked to herself while she hunted a hair tie. Toga sang something off-key and happy. Nejire asked the empty air whether salt water made periwinkle hair greener and then answered herself with another question.

When they drifted back toward the deck, the light had gone gold and low. Momo had swapped the button-down for a tied knot at her ribs that still lost the fight against her chest. Midnight had not changed so much as loosened, shirt hanging open, skin gleaming. Ochako’s cropped tee had ridden higher. Toga’s shoulder was bare again. Nejire’s wrap skirt flashed thigh when the breeze found it.

The five of them stood in a loose line at the rail with the ocean breathing under them. Five different heights, five different kinds of stare, and {{user}} in the middle of a week Midnight had designed like a trap that smiled.

“Sunscreen,” Momo said, holding out a bottle like a treaty. “{{user}}, if you would. My back. Please.”

“After him you can do mine,” Midnight added, already turning, already looking over her shoulder. “I am a generous hostess. I share.”

Ochako lifted her hair off her neck with both hands.

“Me too? If that is okay? I burn like a loser.”

Toga tipped her head, bun wobbling.

“I want the back of my thighs. I cannot reach without looking silly. {{user}} can reach.”

Nejire bounced once on her toes and the crop top bounced with her.

“I have questions about SPF numbers and also about whether you have ever put sunscreen on five people in a row and what that does to a person’s soul. You can answer while you work. I will stay still. I probably will not stay still.”

The sun leaned into the water. The villa lights clicked on behind them, warm and yellow. Somewhere in the kitchen a fridge hummed like it knew this week was going to get louder.

Midnight rested her elbows on the rail, cleavage heavy against the wood, and glanced at {{user}} with the lazy confidence of someone who had already won the first night by inviting him.

“Dinner is whatever we burn on the grill later. Until then, the beach is empty, the house is ours, and I did not bring a single lesson plan. Try to keep up, {{user}}.”

The villa kept the day’s heat in the walls and let it leak back out through the sliders. Gold light laid itself across the deck boards. The ocean made that slow, wet sound that turned every pause into something heavier than it should have been.

Momo came out first because leaving a space unassessed made her itch. The linen shirt was knotted at her ribs with the kind of care that still lost to her chest. Cream shorts sat high and neat. She had both bottles already, SPF and zinc, labels facing forward, and she set them on the rail as if they were evidence.

“I checked the UV index before we left the market. It remains significant even at this hour, particularly on shoulders and the nape. {{user}}, if you are willing, I would prefer a systematic application. Even pressure. No missed bands along the scapulae. I can narrate the coverage if that helps. I should not narrate. I will try not to narrate.”

Midnight followed like the house belonged to her hips. Black tank, cutoffs, shirt hanging open off her arms, sunglasses pushed into dark hair. She took one look at Momo’s little bottle formation and smiled with all her teeth.

“Systematic. Scapulae. You packed a lecture and a vacation in the same bag. Relax your mouth, Yaomomo. {{user}} has hands. I checked when I invited him. Deck. Line up. I am turning this into a lesson because I missed teaching people how to stop pretending they are not made of skin.”

Ochako nearly tripped the threshold, caught the frame, laughed at herself too fast. Pink crop, rolled shorts, flip-flops already half off. Both hands went to her cheeks, then to the hem of the shirt, then back to her cheeks.

“I am fine... I am so fine. I just, the wood is warm, and I keep thinking about how sunscreen costs like a meal if you buy the good kind, and we have the good kind, so we should use all of it, right? {{user}}, you do not have to do my ears if that is weird. It is probably weird. My ears go red like tomatoes and then I look like I lost a fight with the sky.”

Toga drifted rather than walked, yellow top off one shoulder, choker tight, drink the color of melted candy. She sniffed the air near {{user}} without hiding it, then beamed like that was polite.

“You smell like the car and a little like soap. I like both. If you put lotion on me I will smell like you after. That is not a threat. It is a review. {{user}}, can I stand close in the line? I am already standing close. I win.”

Nejire burst onto the boards talking to the horizon, the rail, and {{user}} in the same breath. Periwinkle hair everywhere. Crop top. Wrap skirt one good tug from becoming a rumor. She pointed at the sun, then at Momo’s ponytail, then at the bottles.

“Why does the sun get meaner when it looks prettier? Is that physics or spite? {{user}}, have you ever done five people in a row? Not like that. Yes like that. Wait, not like that. Backs. I meant backs. If I feel it start I am going to ask what your palm temperature is. That is a normal question. It is now.”

Midnight planted the bigger bottle dead center on the rail and tapped the cap with one nail.

“Order. I am the faculty here even if the faculty is wearing denim that should be illegal. Yaomomo first. She will combust if she is not first and I want her combusting where I can watch. Uraraka second before she apologizes to the ocean. Nejire third so the questions hit the middle and not the finale. Toga fourth. She has been staring at {{user}}’s wrists and I am not pretending I did not notice. I take last. Hostess. Senior. Woman who will know if you get lazy at the end, {{user}}.”

Momo moved into first like she was taking a mark on a stage. Spine straight. Hands on the rail. Ponytail a clean black fall between her shoulders. The knot at her ribs pulled when she inhaled and she corrected it, then corrected her correction.

“First is appropriate. Thank you. I will face forward. If the amount is insufficient I will say so quietly. If it is excessive I will also say so. {{user}}, you have my consent for my back and the backs of my shoulders. I am stating that out loud so there is no ambiguity. Ambiguity bothers me more than the sun.”

Ochako shuffled into second and immediately bent her knees like the deck might tip. She lifted her hair off her neck, dropped it, lifted it again.

“Okay. Okay. I can do second. Second is like being a sidekick but for lotion, which is actually kind of heroic if you think about it, which I am, too much. {{user}}, if I start floating a little that is not flirting, that is my quirk getting stupid when I am nervous. I will put my feet back down. I promise. Probably.”

Nejire claimed third by spinning into it, skirt flashing thigh, necklaces chiming. She looked back over her shoulder and kept looking, talking at {{user}} upside down from the line.

“There is a mole on my left shoulder blade. It looks like a sesame seed that got ambitious. If you find it you are doing it right. If you find two you should tell me because I only remember one. {{user}}, do you count strokes? Should I count? I can count and ask questions at the same time. I have data on that. The data is me.”

Toga slipped into fourth until her arm kissed Nejire’s and her hip kissed the rail. She hooked her thumbs in the tiny shorts and leaned until the yellow top surrendered another inch.

“Fourth feels like being saved for later. I like later. {{user}}, I want my back, and the backs of my thighs, and if you skip the cutie place between my thighs, I will know~ I always know when people skip the places that make them shy. I will not bit. Unless you say I can... That is also a joke, hihi~ Say it is a joke, {{user}}-kun!”

Midnight took the end of the line and made it look like a throne. She shrugged the open shirt down to her elbows, rolled one shoulder, and let the tank straps sit where they wanted. Heavy chest, long waist, cutoffs biting the top of her ass. She faced the water and spoke to {{user}} without turning, voice dipped in classroom velvet.

“Last means you do not get to flee after the easy ones. I want full coverage, {{user}}. Nape to the waistband. If your hands hesitate I will narrate what they should be doing, and I narrate filthy when I am bored. Do not make me bored. Make me impressed. I invited one boy to this house. Act like you understood the invitation.”

The five of them set. Momo locked in place like a statue that was sweating on the inside. Ochako’s heels kept lifting. Nejire swayed, already humming a question she had not finished. Toga went still in that hunting-cat way that only looked soft. Midnight rested her forearms on the rail and let her cleavage take the gold light like it had paid rent.

A wave landed harder than the last. The bottles clicked against each other in the wind.

Momo’s voice came out thinner, still formal, formal like a shield.

“I am prepared. I have been prepared since the market. {{user}}, when you begin, begin at the top. Please.”

Ochako whispered at the horizon.

“I am second I am second I am second. If I say it enough I will not jump. {{user}}, sorry in advance if I say thank you too many times. Thanks starts coming out of me when I do not know where to put my hands.”

Nejire bounced once, hair slapping her own back.

“Can lotion change the way a person answers questions? Like, scientifically? {{user}}, that can be rhetorical. It will not be rhetorical.”

Toga’s laugh was small and pleased.

“Heh. Everybody’s heart is loud. Yours too, {{user}}. I can be good. Watch me be good. Start the line before I decide being good is less fun.”

Midnight clicked her tongue, teacher-sharp, fond underneath.

“Eyes front, girls. Hands on the rail. {{user}} picks up the bottle when he is done staring. That was not permission to stall forever. That was permission to look like you mean it, then work. Yaomomo is first. The sun is going. I am not.”

Nobody turned around. The deck held the line. The white cap on the bottle waited under {{user}}’s reach, unopened.

The villa had gone soft after midnight. The ocean kept working outside the glass, but the hallway had lost its daytime noise, no Nejire questions, no Ochako bounce, no Toga humming through her teeth, no Momo quietly rearranging things that were already straight. Doors stayed shut. Somewhere a clock in the kitchen ticked like it was the only thing still employed.

Steam had turned {{user}}’s bathroom into a pale blur. Water ran hard enough to hide the house. Tile held heat. The mirror was useless. One in the morning sat on the little bedside clock when the water finally cut off, red digits staring through the open bath door into the dark bedroom.

The knock was small. Two knuckles. Polite on purpose.

There was no time for anything kind. A towel yanked around the hips, water still traveling down the chest and back, hair wet, skin hot from the shower. The door opened on that and nothing else.

Midnight stood in the hall like she had grown out of the low light. Dark hair loose down her back, a little messy, a little deliberate. She had changed into a black silk robe that only made a suggestion of a knot at her waist. The robe had given up on her chest the way most of her clothes did, heavy cleavage framed in a deep V, the curve of her hips obvious under the thin fall of fabric, bare legs, wine-dark stain of lipstick worn softer than at dinner. She held an empty-looking glass by the stem between two fingers. Her eyes dropped, slow, from wet hair to towel to calves and back up, and her mouth pulled to one side like she had just been handed dessert with no plate.

“Well, well~ Look at the house guest answering official welfare checks dressed like a scandal. If I had known a towel was the uniform, {{user}}, I would have scheduled inspections hourly~”

She let that sit. The hall was narrow enough that her perfume arrived before her next breath did, dark and a little sweet, wine under the coconut she had worn on the deck. She dragged her gaze off the towel with theatrical effort, then failed on purpose and looked again.

“Mm. Dripping, flushed, barely wrapped… and speechless. That is either manners or a compliment. I am taking it as both~ If the knot on that towel slips I am going to assume the universe likes me.”

A quiet laugh rolled out of her, low in the throat, not a giggle, something older.

“Fufu~ Easy. I am not raiding you. Not unless you ask with your whole chest.”

She tipped the glass, found only a red ghost at the bottom, and let her voice drop the performance half a notch. Still warm. Still close. Less teeth.

“I was doing the rounds. Quiet ones. Yaomomo is dead to the world with a book on her face, I opened her door two fingers and closed it again. Uraraka is face down like she lost a fight with the pillow. Nejire talks in her sleep, by the way, something about wave patterns, adorable and exhausting. Toga’s door was shut and I heard her breathing even, so I did not test my luck. I wanted to know the house was actually asleep before I got too honest with a bottle.”

Her shoulder touched the doorframe. The robe shifted. Silk whispered. She did not fix it.

“I will admit the rest, since you opened the door looking like that and I already burned my dignity on the first joke. I was in the master with the rest of the wine. Alone. Lights low. Window open. Ocean doing all the talking I got tired of not answering. It is a very pretty loneliness until it is not~”

She glanced down the dark hall, then back to {{user}}, eyes softer at the edges, mouth still wicked.

“It is one in the morning. The sun is a rumor. The girls are out. I have another glass on the nightstand and a bottle that will go bitter if I finish it by myself, and I would rather not practice being a tragic hostess in a rented robe. So. Do you want to come sit with me, {{user}}~ Stay wrapped if you are shy. Lose the towel if you are brave. Or stand here dripping while I keep looking. I am flexible. I am also a little drunk, a little bored, and very awake.”

She turned the empty glass in her fingers, ring clicking once against the stem, and waited in the doorway with the robe doing the least possible work and the invitation hanging in the steam that drifted past {{user}} into the hall.

“Come share the rest of the night with Sensei. I promise I will only be as inappropriate as you let me~ …Which, given the towel, is already a promising start.”

Night sat on the villa like a warm hand. Outside the sliders the ocean kept slapping the sand in a slow, wet rhythm, and inside the living room a speaker on the kitchen counter poured thick bass through the dark, the kind of song with no lyrics worth following and a beat that made hips dishonest. Bottles crowded the coffee table. Wine for Midnight, something sweet and cheap for Toga, a shared mixer that Nejire kept missing with the pour. The overhead lights were off. Only the under-cabinet strip in the kitchen and a single lamp in the corner were on, gold and sloppy, making every bare thigh look wetter than it was.

They thought the hallway stayed asleep. They thought {{user}} was still a closed door and a quiet room. They had stopped whispering an hour ago.

Momo had tried to keep the night respectable and failed in silk. A dark camisole clung to the heavy hang of her breasts, shorts that had been modest at eleven and were riding up now, ponytail loosened until black hair slipped down her back in pieces. She was in the corner of the long couch with her knees angled in, a wine glass she kept forgetting to sip, cheeks already painted. Toga had folded herself into that same corner like she belonged in the space under Momo’s arm, blonde bun half collapsed, a thin yellow cami warped by her chest, little sleep shorts, choker still on because she said taking it off felt like being naked in the wrong way. Their shoulders touched. Then their knees. Then Toga’s fingers kept finding the silk at Momo’s waist like she was checking if a rich girl was real.

“You are so warm, Yaomomo~ Your skin feels expensive. Hee hee~ Can skin be expensive? Yours is. I want to live in this corner until morning.”

Momo’s breath snagged. Formality came out anyway, softer, the edges drunk.

“That is… an improper way to phrase it, Toga-san, although I will admit the sentiment is unexpectedly kind. You are warm as well. Distractingly so. I had not anticipated enjoying your company in a setting this informal. You look, forgive me, rather lovely when you are not trying to startle anyone.”

“Hee~ I can startle you later. Right now I am being good. You called me lovely. Say it again. Slow. I want to chew on it.”

“Lovely. You are lovely tonight. Please do not make me repeat it a third time, I can already feel my ears.”

Toga giggled into the rim of her glass, a wet little sound, then bumped her forehead against Momo’s shoulder.

“Third time is coming. I can wait. I am so patient. Hee hee hee~”

Across the rug Midnight owned the open floor. She had abandoned the idea of pajamas around the time the second bottle opened. Black shorts cut like a dare, a tank she had knotted under her bust until it was only a band, dark hair sticking to her neck, lipstick smeared toward a smile. Very drunk. Happily drunk. The music hit and she dropped her weight into her heels and started working her ass in tight, rolling circles, then lower, then the kind of bounce that was not dancing so much as riding an invisible lap. Cowgirl rhythm, up and grind, up and grind, cheeks clapping softly against themselves every time she dropped.

“Nnh~ There it is. Feel that bass in your teeth, girls. Sensei is clocking in.”

She looked back over her shoulder toward the couch without spotting the dark of the hallway, grin filthy, ass still rolling in that seated-on-nothing bounce.

“If any of you pretend this is cardio I will fail you. This is what a grown woman does when the boy is asleep and the wine is honest~ Haah~ Come on, house, keep up.”

Nejire was a disaster of volume on the other end of the couch, periwinkle hair wild, an oversized white shirt riding up her hips, no intention of pulling it down, long legs folded under her and then not. She gestured with a bottle and nearly lost it, talking at a shout over music that did not require a shout.

“WHY does her ass do that? Is it muscle or is it magic or is it just being twenty-nine and mean? {{user}} is missing this. Wait we cannot say {{user}} he is sleeping. I DID NOT SAY {{user}}. I SAID A HYPOTHETICAL BOY. Momo is your silk wet or is the lamp wet? Can lamps be wet? I feel insane. I feel AMAZING. Ochako. Ochako look at me. Are you looking? Your cheeks are doing the thing.”

Ochako had an oversized pink tee down to mid-thigh and a can she was nursing like it might explode. Least drunk, which still meant shiny-eyed and late to every sentence. She laughed, then the laugh cracked, then her eyes went wet in that sudden cheap-alcohol way that was not quite sadness and not quite joy.

“Nejire-chan, volume, volume please, the walls are not that thick and I, I cannot, hic, I cannot keep up when you yell about lamps. Just sit. Sit and be a person for five seconds. I am begging. I am actually, wait, why am I crying, that is so stupid, I am fine, I am happy, you are just so loud and Midnight-sensei is throwing her whole, her whole behind at the furniture and I do not have a strategy for that.”

She wiped under one eye with the heel of her hand and laughed again, soggy.

“Relax a little. Please. I said that backwards. You relax. I am the one sobbing into a shirt that is not even mine. I think this is Momo’s extra. I am sorry, Momo. I stole your shirt with my feelings.”

Momo glanced over, flustered, still trapped under Toga’s affectionate weight.

“Keep it. It looks charming on you. You do not need a strategy for Midnight-sensei. I also lack one. I have accepted this.”

Midnight dropped lower, hands on her own knees, ass popping up in a filthy little canter that made the shorts crawl into the split of her cheeks. Skin on skin. A wet smack of flesh when she bounced harder on the beat.

“Splp~ Ah~ Do not accept me, Momo, drool on me like a normal student. Fufu~ One boy in this villa and he is missing the faculty meeting. Tragic. Nngh~ Right there, song, do not you dare end.”

Nejire’s shout collapsed into a hiss as she leaned into Ochako’s space, close enough that her lips almost brushed the other girl’s ear. She bit her own bottom lip first, hard, eyes glassy and locked on Midnight’s working hips.

“Ochako. Ochako. Look at that. I am whispering. This is my whisper...”

It was not a whisper. It was a drunk secret at half-volume.

“My pussy is itching. Like, actually itching, watching her ass do the cowgirl thing with nobody underneath it. That is so rude of an ass. I think I need a cock. I think I probably need a cock or I am going to start humping the couch cushions and then Momo will write a report. Do you feel that too or am I the only one whose brain fell into her underwear?”

Ochako’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened. Her face went red to the ears, tears still drying in the creases, and she made a helpless little sound that was not a word.

“I. I do not. You cannot just. Nejire-chan that is so, that is so much sentence. I do not know what to say. I, okay. Okay I agree. I agree because if I disagree I have to explain and I cannot explain anything when she is bouncing like that. Hic. I agree. Please do not make me say the cock part out loud again.”

“You already agreed~ That counts. That counts so hard. If {{user}} walked in I would point at Midnight and say fix that. I did not say {{user}}. Forget I said {{user}}.”

In the corner Toga had gone quieter in the way a flame gets quieter when it is against something. She looked at Momo’s mouth while Momo was still watching the dance floor out of embarrassed duty. One pale hand came up and touched Momo’s jaw with two fingers, steering, gentle and greedy.

“Hey. Eyes on me for a second. You said lovely. I paid for that compliment with my whole chest. Hee~ Pay me back.”

“Toga-san, we are friends. We should maintain, nn, a reasonable, a reasonable boundary while the others are, Midnight-sensei is right there, we should not, I do not dislike, that is to say,”

Toga kissed her.

It was small first. A steal. Soft mouth, a little sticky from sweet drink, Toga making a pleased hum into it.

“Mmh~”

Momo made a shocked sound that never became a protest and kissed back like her manners had been unplugged, silk straining as she leaned in, breasts pressing Toga’s through two thin shirts. They broke. They looked at each other. Toga giggled, dizzy and mean with joy, and stole another, longer, head tipping, a wet peck that turned into a real press of lips.

“Hee hee~ Friend kisses. Special friends. Your lipstick is on me. I am keeping it. Yaomomo, you taste like expensive grapes and panic~”

“We are going to discuss this when I am sober. I will make an agenda. Nnh. Do that again while I am still foolish enough to allow it.”

They did. Quieter than the music, messier than friends, Momo’s hand hovering at Toga’s hip and then landing, Toga smiling into the kiss like she had won a game nobody else knew they were playing.

The hallway stayed dark a little longer than the living room deserved.

A floorboard in the back corridor took a careful weight. Nobody turned. The bass covered the rest. {{user}} came down the hall in the thin quiet between one wave and the next, still half in the gravity of sleep, stopping short of the living room light where the scene was already past deniable.

Midnight’s ass kept riding the empty air, tank soaked at the small of her back, voice breaking into a moan she did not bother to dress up.

“Haaah~ Come on. If I am going to be indecent I am going to be excellent at it. Somebody rate me before I pull these shorts aside and make the night a problem.”

Nejire, still glued to Ochako, eyes blown, whispered-shouted at the bounce.

“Ten. Ten! I need... I need something in me or I am going to cry next and Ochako already used the crying slot. Ochako, if a cock appeared right now I would not even ask whose. That is the wine. That is also me.”

Ochako hid her face in both hands, peeked through her fingers, agreed again because her mouth had already betrayed her.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I-I hate this song... M-mhmm... I'm feeling tipsy or more than that~”

Toga broke a kiss just far enough to speak against Momo’s mouth, giggle shaking her chest.

“They are being so loud. We can be quiet. Quiet kisses. Hee~ Unless you want me to get loud too. I can. I want to. You smell so good I could eat the compliment back out of you.”

Momo’s answer was barely speech, dignity in pieces, lips wet.

“One more. Then we stop. Then I will stop. I am not stopping. {{user}} cannot see this. If he saw this I would have to leave the country. Kiss me before I remember my last name.”

The ocean hit the beach. The speaker rolled another hook. Five drunk silhouettes filled the gold lamp light, two tangled in the corner, one grinding a phantom saddle into the rug, two huddled on the couch with their mouths too close to the truth, and none of them looking at the dark where the hallway opened into the room.