Teach Me How To Fly (A Koutaro Bokuto Story)

Don't Touch Her

Wizzy: Okay, so this chapter turned out a lot lamer than I intended. Sorry, it's not as exciting as the last few. Just remember one thing for the rest of the story: Never Doubt the Game Master (aka me.) All things happen for a reason.

The rest of the week-long training camp passed by without much incident. No one else spilled food on Bokuto and me, so I was saved from having to take another shower with him and from having to deal with the awkwardness of seeing him naked again.

Tonight was our last night here and the practice matches had already ended. As I went along doing my job of gathering stray volleyballs, I noticed two of Karasuno's players talking. One leaned down and picked something up. A piece of paper? Looked almost like a piece of a newspaper.

Wait... newspaper? Rolling the ball with me, I made my way over to see if my suspicions about the paper were right. The taller one with glasses was the one holding it. What was his name again? Tsuki-something... Tsukishima!

"She's pretty cute," the other one said, looking at the paper in Tsukishima's hand. Must have had a picture. That was confirming what I thought.

"She's missing." Yep. I had a feeling I knew exactly what that was. But what was it doing here?

Having heard only "she's cute," a couple of others came over to see what was going on. Surprisingly, they all pretty much agreed that the girl in the picture was cute, though they didn't seem to understand why someone would be carrying around an article about a girl who was currently missing.

"She's probably related to someone here," Tsukishima's friend said. But most of the others shook their heads.

"I'll bet she's someone's girlfriend!" an energetic orange-haired boy suggested. Hinata was the boy's name; he'd become quite a star the last few days with that freaky quick he did with Karasuno's dark-haired setter.

Nishinoya nodded in agreement with Hinata. "A girl that cute would definitely have a boyfriend and there are many cool guys here."

Beside him were the dark-haired setter and the third-year setter. Kageyama and Sugawara, I thought their names were. Kageyama didn't seem all that interested but stuck around anyway.

"It doesn't matter why it's here," the silver-haired setter said. "You should give it back to whoever it belongs to."

Giving it back would only be possible if they could figure out who it belonged to though. Honestly, it probably would have been best to just get rid of it, for Bokuto's sake. If I was going to be stuck as an owl for the rest of my life, then it was best for him to forget about the human me.

"I'd rather just toss it," Tsukishima said, glaring at the piece of paper. "She's probably a terrible person anyw-" As kind of a person as I was, it made me angry to hear him say something like that about me. So I headbutted his leg, though it wasn't hard.

The boys all looked down at me. Nishinoya was the first to speak, saying something that I couldn't quite catch other than the mention of my name. It was then that the group made a bit of a connection between the owl at their feet and the girl in the article. Or that was what I'd assumed. They at least figure out that we shared the same name.

"I think it's more than just a coincidence that they share the same name," Sugawara said. He was much more right than he realized. "If I had to guess, the one who brought the owl probably knows the girl."

"That's a pretty lucky guess from someone who doesn't know Bokuto," a now very familiar voice said before I felt myself being picked up. Kuroo held me in one arm and pointed at the paper in Tsukishima's hand. "That girl was a friend of Akaashi's, Fukurodani's setter. From what I heard she was incredibly sweet but avoided Bokuto, so he'd never had a chance to even talk to the girl. But he fell for her anyway. Even named his owl after her because he claims that she's just like the girl he'd been crazy about."

The way Kuroo explained it made it sound bad, but honestly, I didn't think the whole story was that bad. Bokuto had a crush, found an owl that acted like her, named the owl after his crush. Nothing wrong with that, right? Apparently not everyone thought so. "So basically he's obsessed with a girl he barely knows."

"Don't say such rude things, Tsukishima," the older setter scolded him. "I'm sure he knows a lot about her. And I'll bet she's a very nice girl." Sugawara then took the little article from the tall blonde.

Of course, that just so happened to be the moment when a certain someone realized that someone had found a certain something that he'd been told by Akaashi to get rid of. Almost as fast as he could have teleported, Bokuto was right there. He quickly ripped the small scrap of paper out of the innocent setter's hands. "Don't touch her!"

Sensing that now would be a good time for it, Kuroo set me on Bokuto's shoulder. It was a good thing too because he looked like he might get into one of his moods again. Unable to do much else to alter his mood, I did the one thing I knew that had the most effect on him. I brushed the top of my head against his cheek, hoping that maybe it would be just enough.

And just like every time before, I managed to lighten his mood just as much as I needed to. Though I couldn't help but fear that one day, I might not be able to do enough for him.