I Can't Say "I Love You" | Kuroo Tetsurō

Chapter 16: Old Love

Mirai wanted to apologize to whatever higher being existed that she pissed off somehow.

"Mirai-san, are you okay?" Yamaguchi asked worriedly.

The girl nodded her head vigorously as she tried to calmly eat her bowl of rice without freaking out on the outside as much as she was on the inside. She was clearly failing at convincing Yamaguchi that she was alright just from her tense posture.

Sitting next to the timid manager at the table beside her, the Nekoma captain would glance at her fidgety behavior and frown a little deeper than the last. A slight pang of jealousy struck him as he realized that she was acting that way because of someone. A guy, to be exact.

The question was: who was it?

Dinner was surely going to be interesting that night, Akaashi could tell from a mile away that the ever-popular-with-girls-Kuroo-san was preoccupied by something. The Fukurodani setter's eyes landed on Mirai - who was coughing from choking on her rice - and felt a small smile form on his lips.

"Akaashi, what are you staring at?" Bokuto inquired his vice captain and pressed his cheek next to his to get a look, his eyes widened after seeing Mirai in view.

"I wasn't staring. Please don't make such assumptions." Akaashi defended and lightly pushed away the owl captain's face.

"Akaashi, you're not planning on sabotaging Kuroo's plans, are you?!" The silver-black haired ace gasped.

"Who knows." Akaashi replied with a disinterested tone and continued eating his meal.

Meanwhile at the Karasuno-Nekoma table, Mirai found herself wanting to disappear from the existence of the earth as she was hopelessly trapped. To her far left was Tsukishima Kei, her first love and the main reason why Mirai wanted to stay in Japan.

She knew the tall blond and his freckled companion since their second year of middle school. The trio used to be close friends back then. However, the Tsukishima Kei she knew was never this half-assed when it came to volleyball, at least not by this much.

He used to easily block his opponents and then smirk smugly at their irritated expressions towards him; now he seemed to not even give an effort to jump for a block. She wondered why he didn't seem to care at all about the sport.

Aside from his personality changes, she noted that Tsukishima's physical appearance was different as well. Though he was still a tree when he stood next to someone short like her, and his good looks have probably shot up from just handsome to smoking hot after middle school.

She wasn't going to lie to herself, she found him as attractive as ever - just like she did back in middle school.

Unsurprisingly, Mirai had fallen hopelessly in love with the beanpole like many girls in their school and confessed her feelings to him on their graduation day. Tsukishima rejected her rather harshly, throwing in some little insults into the rejection and laughing at her for thinking that things would go well like she hoped just because they were friends.

Mirai was crushed at the reality of the situation and ran away. She left to study in Tokyo after that humiliating event and enrolled in Nekoma for a fresh start.

As for her other friend Yamaguchi, he was always the one torn in-between.

The poor boy was too scared to choose sides since he had his own reasons why he couldn't, namely: 1) Tsukishima was the one who saved him from his bullies and 2) He was in love with Mirai and couldn't find it in him to upset her.

She was never aware of his feelings towards her and he preferred to keep it that way. Tsukishima found it pathetic that his best friend was obviously crushing on her and didn't do a thing about it. Yamaguchi would always find an excuse not to do anything.

That was all ancient history now. Besides, he moved on after he realized that she was in love with someone else - and of course it had to be with his best friend, Tsukishima.

When Yamaguchi witnessed the rejection of Mirai's one sided love, he felt sympathetic towards her because he knew the feeling of that end result. He couldn't exactly say that he felt the same as he never did confess to her back then, but he saw Tsukishima reject many girls countless of times and it always pained him to see the sadness in their eyes.

"You look pale, kitten." Kuroo spoke up after watching the Nekoma manager struggle to swallow her dinner.

The bedheaded captain gave a sideways glance at Tsukishima, who raised an inquisitive brow at the Nekoma middle blocker. Mirai tried her best to ignore Tsukishima's presence at the table and Kuroo's scrutinizing gaze towards the tall blonde. Moreover, she was amazed that she barely noticed Tsukishima at all during the day.

Maybe it was because she had to focus on her own team and didn't pay attention to anything else? Yeah, maybe.

"Mirai-chan, why are you so tense?" Kuroo asked, pinching her cheek. "If you don't relax that frown of yours then you're going to get ugly wrinkles, you know."

"I-I won't get wrinkles! Stop teasing me, damn it!" She huffed and swatted at his hand, earning a soft chuckle from the third year at her cute actions.

"If you say so, kitten~" he cooed teasingly.

Tsukishima blinked at the nickname the scheming captain gave her. "Kitten? It definitely suits someone like you for sure." He snickered.

Mirai sighed and hurriedly excused herself from the group to go shower. Yamaguchi looked towards Tsukishima worriedly and hoped that Mirai wasn't too upset.

Kuroo got up from his table and sat down in Mirai's empty seat, eyes fixated on the blonde sitting one person away from him. It was like a silent declaration of war and Tsukishima tensed, frowning at the hard stare he was being given.

"What?" He asked coolly.

Kuroo smirked in amusement from the response and tilted his head as he examined the first year. He was definitely tall for his age and he looked smart. Mirai seemed nervous around him in particular so Kuroo knew her earlier behavior had something to do with him.

The two of them had only met once and it was weeks ago during their time in Miyagi for the battle of the garbage dump. They didn't interact much but he could tell right away that the Karasuno middle blocker was someone who didn't like to take things too seriously.

Kuroo smiled and silently left the table, leaving Tsukishima very confused.