His Warrior Queen: A Haikyuu!! Novel (Tsukishima x OC)

Chapter 81: Goody Two Shoes

Nakano was feeling pretty wiped out as she made her way up the stairs to the girl's changing room following Friday's practice.  It had turned out to be a far more exhausting day than she'd originally thought it would be.  

She'd known that saying goodbye to Kei for the next couple of days would be a little tough.  They'd gotten out of the classroom as quickly as possible, making their way to a secluded spot not too far from the gym, but not too close to it either.  A quiet spot where two teenagers could definitely indulge in kissing one another for an extended period of time without anyone else seeing them.  Once they'd done that, Kei had pressed his forehead against hers.  

"It's only really one day away, if you think about it, Roses," he'd said.  "I'm holding you right now, and I'll be holding you again Sunday night.  It's really only Saturday where I won't see you at all.  That isn't so bad, right?"

Nakano had chuckled, and playfully swatted his behind.  "I think we can survive it, lover boy."

Kei had started, then growled at her ever so softly.  "Not fair, Roses.  Very not fair."

"Sorry, love."  She'd looked rather chagrined.

He'd chuckled.  "Don't be.  I'll be replaying that in my mind fairly often, I think."  He'd kissed her nose fondly.  "I have to go.  See you Sunday, beautiful."  He'd caressed her face as he moved away, she stretched herself forward to keep in contact with him as long as she could as he headed out. 

She'd watched him walk towards the main entrance of Karasuno until she could no longer see him.  Just as she was about to heave a deep sigh, and maybe let a tear or two fall, her phone had chimed with a text from the very blonde boy in question, telling her to quit moping and get to practice.  And that he loved her.  

That had been enough to make her laugh, and get herself going again.  Enough shojo manga dramatics, she'd thought, shooting off a quick string of emojis to Kei, time to get down to business.

Except somehow, along the way, everyone had neglected to tell her what the business of the day was.  

Nakano had assumed that it would be another day of regular drills (Friday was spiking drills, which somehow would not be the same without Shoyo), taunting and teasing from the cutie pies, and then serves...lots and lots of serves.

So when she'd gotten into the gym to find Kiyoko and Yachi setting up for a match, she'd been thoroughly confused.

"Coach Ukai told us about this on Wednesday," Kiyoko had said, "Tokonami's coming today to practice with us.  To give us a chance to see how our new serves are coming along."

Nakano wondered exactly how spaced out she'd been on Wednesday to have completely missed that announcement.  She'd run the boys through an abbreviated version of her spiking drills, giving them a little time before Tokonami's arrival to do some serving practice.

It hadn't helped.

One thing they'd learned for sure today - serving practice and serving against an actual opponent were two entirely different things.  The other thing they learned was just exactly how valuable their first years were.  The first set against Tokonami, who they'd beaten fairly easily in the prelims, was a string of botched serves and missed timings.  It wasn't a shut out or anything, but Tokonami did manage to take the first set from them, making Daichi call for a flying lap in an irritated voice.

Nakano shivered again as she changed clothes, remembering the sound of the Captain's growl.  She'd dropped what she was doing immediately to hit the deck with her team, much to their opponent's amusement and confusion.  And when that lap was complete, the student coach had called her boys into a huddle.