Room to Grow (Asahi Azumane)

Chapter 15

       We were heading home, I was a little bit farther away from Daichi, Suga and Asahi, just thinking about today's game. 

"Emi." I heard Asahi's voice, he had sped up a little to get up next to me as we walked. 

"Hm?" I hummed lightly. 

"What's wrong?" He asked as we walked side by side. 

"Nothing. Just thinking about today's games." I say with a small smile. "You guys did good today. I'm proud of all of you. All of you guys are shaping up to be a good team." He smiled at me. "We are going to meet a lot of tough teams, but we are becoming stronger as a team and that's what counts." I took a step and my knee buckled, my knee popped as it did, jarring my walking for a second. I grabbed Asahi's sleeve to keep myself from falling. 

"You okay?" He asked as we stopped and he helped me stand without falling over. 

"Oh god, it hasn't done that in a while." I say quietly. "I'm fine, I just did a lot of walking and getting up and down today." 

"Did you bring your knee brace today?" Asahi asked. 

"No. I should have." I say with a sigh. "I'm fine Asahi, no need to worry." We continued our walking, I was limping slightly from the pain. I sighed quietly. We soon parted ways, Daichi and I walked towards our house. 

"You and Asahi seem to be getting closer." He said with a smirk on his face. 

"S-shut up Daichi." I stuttered out, turning my head away so he couldn't see the blush on my face. 

"You like him don't you?" He suddenly questioned. 

"Where the hell did that come from?!" I questioned, turning my head to look at him. He started laughing. "No you idiot! We're just friends!" 

"Whatever you say." He said. I hit him with my bag. "Ow! Okay! Okay!" He said laughing. We got to our house, I went and took a quick shower and started to watch the CD that Ukai gave me. I had my note pad out, a cup of tea, as I sat at my desk with my laptop in front of me as it played the Aoba Johsai game, I took notes as I watched it. Oikawa was a great setter, almost like Kageyama, but not really, his were more controlled, so were his serves, they went exactly where he wanted them to go. I sighed quietly, it's going to be a long night.

        The next day, on the bus ride to the gym, Ukai and I compared our notes and they were the same thing. Once we got there we jumped right into getting ready for the game. Oikawa and Daichi met with the refs. Daichi came over to Ukai and I, he told us the we have first serve. We started warm ups, they were spiking, Noya was practicing receives with me. The boys were enthusiastic with warm ups and showing what they had. Soon enough the whistle blew, the boys stood in front of Ukai, Takeda and I. 

"All of you have beaten Aoba Johsai once before. Even if our opponents weren't at the top of their game the last time, I think that having defeated them once before is a good reason to be confident. Don't be conceited; be confident." Takeda said.

"Yes, sir!" The boys yelled. They went on the court, I quickly through my hair up into a ponytail to keep it out of my face. We sat down on the bench, I looked between the teams, with Oikawa around, it's going to be more difficult especially since we don't really know what his sets are like. It was Tsukishima's serve, once the whistle blew, he hit the ball over the net and the game began. The ball was received, two people went after the ball, it looked like Oikawa was going to set it, when he jumped he moved his body and spiked the ball, making it a setter dump. I stared in shock at Oikawa.

"Shit!" Ukai muttered from next to me. 

"That was a really bold setter dump." Takeda added. 

"What the hell." I added after that. The next serve we were able to get it over the net with Hinata's fast attack, but they were able to receive it without an issue. Oikawa acted like he was going to do a setter dump again, but switched it last second to get Tanaka and Hinata to jump, he set it to the spiker.