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

Chapter 46: Magic Carpet Ride

Nakano wandered along among the various rides of the carnival, watching kids and families having fun with one another.

She'd deliberately slipped into the crowd as quickly as possible when walking away from Kei and Akiteru, mostly because she knew Kei would try to follow her with his eyes for as long as he could, and she wanted the two brothers to focus on each other.

Now, ten minutes into her walk, she hoped they were actually talking to one another, and not just sitting on the wall.

She shook her head, knowing that dwelling on what might be happening between the boys would do no good.  She would just have to wait until the hour was up, or until Kei texted her.  She dearly hoped she would not be receiving a text.  That would almost certainly be a failure of the boys to communicate.  She couldn't imagine it taking less than an hour for the two to go through what had happened and how they felt about it all.  Well, maybe Kei wouldn't need that much time, but Akiteru would.

She sighed, trying once again to clear her mind and not think about what was transpiring on a low wall by the midway.  She cast her glance about, checking out the rides and thinking about what she might like to convince the boys to do once they got back together again.

Suddenly, she caught sight of a shock of bright orange hair.

"Shoyo?" she called out instinctively, headed towards the colorful head.

"Naka-chan!" Hinata turned and waved at her, holding the hand of a little girl who, had she been his age, could have been his twin.  She looked rather upset at the moment, however.  Hinata was looking around behind his coach.  "Are you here by yourself?  Where's Suc...uh...I mean, Tsukishima?"  

Nakano caught the blush and side-eye the boy gave what she assumed was his little sister, knowing that he censored himself because the little one was there.  "He's here too, but I'm giving him and his older brother a little private bonding time."  Nakano smiled broadly at the pair.

"Nii-chan, who is she?" the little girl asked, tugging on the boy's hand.

"Naka-chan, this is my sister, Natsu.  Nat-chan, this is my friend, Nakano-chan.  Say hello to her," Hinata prompted the girl.

Natsu looked at Nakano and cocked her head to the side.  "Are you nii-chan's girlfriend?" she blurted out, making Nakano laugh.

"Natsu!  Don't say things like that!  She's my friend and teammate!" Hinata was frantically looking around, hoping that neither Tsukishima nor Kageyama had been anywhere nearby and heard that.  "Sorry about that, Naka-chan.  She's been all about boyfriends and girlfriends lately.  I don't know what's going on in her head!"

Nakano smiled kindly at the bright-eyed little girl.  "It's very nice to meet you.  Your brother and I are friends, Natsu, and I help coach his volleyball team."  Nakano leaned down to whisper conspiratorially to the girl.  "But I do have a boyfriend.  He's on the team too."

"You coach my brother?" the girl's eyes had grown wide.

"Yeah, she's great!  She helps us with our practices, and finds fun ways to make us all get better at volleyball.  She's super at volleyball too!"  Shoyo enthused.

"I want to see you play, Nakano-chan!" Natsu cried.

Nakano laughed again.  "Okay, the next time your brother comes to visit my house, you'll have to come with him.  I have a volleyball court in my backyard.  Do you like to play volleyball, Natsu?"

"Yeah!  Nii-chan lets me play with him sometimes!  It's fun!"  Natsu suddenly stopped, looking from Nakano to her brother.  "She's taller than you, nii-chan," the little girl said, a ponderous look on her face.