Crows of a Feather

2

Daichi starts to call for us all to gather up before he cuts himself off. I notice someone standing next to the new guy, and when I recognize who it is, I realize I'm probably about to be in big trouble.

"Starting today, this is who'll be handling coaching. Ukai Keishin."

Daichi seems surprised, running over to the adults. "C- Coaching? Really?!"

My cousin nods. "Up through the Nekoma match, yeah-"

He cuts himself off when he spots me, and his eyes narrow. "Oi, brat! What're you doing here? You don't start school until tomorrow and I told you to text me if you left the house!"

Everyone turns to stare at me, and I smile sheepishly. "Uh... sorry?"

Keishin lets out a long sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. "And here I was thinking you weren't gonna be a handful."

Tanaka speaks up suddenly. "How do you know Katō? And aren't you the guy from the Sakanoshita store? How're you a coach?"

The small guy in the green jacket grins brightly. "He's an alumni of the school and coach Ukai's grandson! But uh, who's Katō?"

"Coach Ukai?!"

Ignoring the outburst, Keishin walks over to me, scowling. "My younger cousin. He just moved from America to live with me for now."

The small guy smiles again. "Ah, I see. It's nice to meet you, Katō. I'm Takeda, school advisor for the team. Will you be joining?"

I turn to Takeda with a bright smile. "Yeah, I'd love to."

Keishin nods before clapping to get everyone's attention. "Alright, moving on. We've got no time to lose, so hurry up and get to it! I wanna see what sort of players you are, so we're gonna have a game at 6:30! I've already called your opponents."

Everyone looks surprised and Daichi cocks his head. "Eh?! Opponents?!"

My cousin grins slyly. "The Karasuno Neighborhood Association Team."

Soon everyone moving around the gym, warming up and Keishin waves me over to the sidelines. I find myself shrinking nervously under his disapproving gaze and I'm rambling before he can even say anything.

"I'm really, really sorry. I forgot to text you cause I forgot my phone and then I got lost by following a cat which in hindsight was really stupid so I kept walking and I found the school and Daichi offered to help me get home after practice but I didn't mean to cause trouble or anything, I promise-"

I'm cut off when Kei sighs, tugging me forward into a hug. "Geez, kid. How am I supposed to get onto you if you already got onto yourself? It's fine. You're safe and even made a few friends so I can't be too upset."

He ruffles my hair before shoving me towards the court. "Now go get warmed up. Brat."

I stick my tongue out at him as I head onto the court. "I'm not a brat."

After a while, the door opens again and four guys step into the gym. Keishin waves them over before calling me over again to join them. He slings an arm around my shoulders with a crooked grin.

"Hey! Sorry for having you guys come here so suddenly. This is my cousin I was telling you about."

The guy with glasses grins and holds out a hand. "It's Y/n, right? It's nice to finally put a face to the name! Y'know, this guy wouldn't shut up about you at practice when it was decided that you'd be moving in with him. He was so excited to see you again and-"

Keishin slaps a hand over his mouth, glaring slightly, the tips of his ears dusted a light pink. "Shut up-! We've got a game to get started."

The rest of the guys laugh while Keishin waves them off and goes to set up the teams. They start to introduce themselves as his friends but we're distracted before they can try to embarrass him any further.