How to fly with clipped wings (English ver.) HAIKYUU!! FAN FICTION

Chapter 41: The Crutches

A/N: This one is one of my favorite chapters.

Mikaela was in a significantly better mood for the afternoon scrimmages. Something about her talk with Fuki had sparked something in her and now Mikaela was trying to decide what to do with this newfound motivation.

She'd always been sure that her prosthetic would be an indicator for pity. She didn't want sad stares, or the pitiful "oh, I'm so sorry", or the wary eyes when she did anything physical. No matter how much she had protested that she was okay, people still kept an extra eye on her. Hell, even Kageyama had been intolerable in the beginning; he was by her side with every move she made like he was afraid she'd fall over.

Sure, one part of Mikaela appreciated the concern, but the other part of her just wanted to be treated like normal.

Whatever 'normal' was, anyways.

She leaned back against the wall and tapped the pen against her chin as she glared at her notes. If there was one person she was determined to get a 'tell' for, it was Miya Atsumu. That jerk had freaked her out yesterday and had been nothing but annoyingly cocky, so Mikaela was more than ready to expose him. She'd hunted through magazines and videos for details but had come up short so far.

"Server up!" someone called, and Mikaela's gaze trailed back to the match where her least favourite setter was going up to serve.

The fun thing about Miya was that he'd mastered both types of serves- jump serves and float serves. It was powerful, especially since you couldn't tell what was coming, and both were hard to receive. Not only was he a top-notch setter but one of the best servers in the country.

Miya ran and jumped, and the ball rocketed into a wicked spike serve that hit the back line. Miya pumped his fist and his team congratulated him, and Mikaela sighed. He was like Oikawa on steroids. Kageyama, who was on the other team, made eye contact with Mikaela and shrugged. There was no getting that one.

The teams shuffled back into position, and Miya went back up to serve. Kageyama was in the front row on the receiving side, so he moved towards the net, glaring intensely at Miya. The server moved four steps away from the service line, then turned to face the net. "Server up," someone shouted.

Mikaela narrowed her eyes. He's not as far back as he was before.

Miya jumped, and Mikaela could tell as soon as the ball hit his palm that it was a jump floater. There's something about the steps. Holy crap, there's something about the steps! Holy crap! She was so startled by the revelation that she accidentally said, "wait!" out loud as she was scribbling stuff down. If Kageyama's team gets the point, then Miya won't serve, and I won't get to test my theory-

Naturally, no one paid her any attention, but Kageyama did.

The serve had been received, but it wasn't pretty. One of the players made a great dive to get the second hit, sending the ball soaring towards Kageyama. "Last hit!" someone called, and Kageyama set up to spike the ball.

His midnight blue eyes met her matching ones, and she could've sworn that something passed between them. Kageyama jumped as the blockers on the other team went up. The blockers were good, sure, but it was nothing Kageyama couldn't handle. So Mikaela was pretty surprised when his spike hit the blockers' arms and fell down to the court.

"My bad," Kageyama said, waving a hand in apology. Miya's team moved into a huddle to celebrate the point.

"It was a good block," one of Kageyama's team mates consoled, patting him on the back. "We'll get the next one."

He nodded and moved to position, then turned and locked eyes with her. Mikaela's face split into a grin- he had lost that point on purpose so she could watch the serve again. Christ, had he read her mind?