ice queen • haikyuu

017 | late night cuddles

"Right!"

Mizuki was distracted by watching her soulmates interact with each other. Bokuto was gathering praises from his teammates, brightening up as they complimented him almost routinely.

Her eyes narrowed.

"We don't have to stop it?"

Mizuki almost chocked on air, her head snapping to the taller blonde on their team. The rest of the team replicated her reaction, all in shock as Tsukishima finally participated in their conversations willingly.

Keishin smirked, arms crossed over his chest. "Well, if you're able to actually shut the ball out, there's nothing better."

Their blonde middle blocker surprised them all.

Mizuki's face lit up when he managed to alarm and intimidate Bokuto, who turned his spike into a feint. Her lips contorted into a smirk.

"Wow! I totally thought they were going to come with a full-on attack there," Takeda exclaimed, "to think it was a feint...i guess that's what you get with an ace that went to nationals."

Mizuki chuckled, her arms folding on top of each other. "He was," she answered, gathering her teacher's attention, who she stood beside. "Tsukshima scared him into pulling that feint."

Keishin stared in utter flabbergastation.

Spotting the grin Bokuto sent to the blonde once he turned away, Mizuki knew that he had some hand in helping Karasuno's salty baby crow grow out of his shell. Whatever it was, she was grateful. With Tsukishima now putting in more effort, Karasuno's defence was sure to skyrocket.

Mizuki now had to reevaluate everything. She was going to be hella busy when they returned back to Miyagi. She planned on developing their training programs, adding the new analysis she had conjured so far. They were going to win their competition and go to nationals — no matter what.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

That night, Mizuki sat in a makeshift lounge she found when she roamed around the unfamiliar school. She had slipped out of the managers' room, uninterested in their gossip sessions or whatever it was they were talking about. She briefly conversed with them when they asked questions, but other than that, they didn't know her, and she didn't know them.

Mizuki was completely fine with that. New friends were a hassle to have. She wondered how she was even able to cope with the boy on the volleyball team. How she became their friend was an enigma in itself. 

Laying on the couch, Mizuki gingerly traced the spine of the book in her hand, finding comfort in its leather cover. The book was old and perfectly fit for the time. The sun was beginning to set and the beautiful dimmed colours, filtering in through the window, seemed to contribute to the artificial light installed into the ceiling. She read word by word, the sun setting, its lingering light obliterated by the rapidly falling night.

"Oh," a quiet gasp tore Mizuki's attention away from the story, reeling her back into reality. She turned to the door, spotting her pudding-haired soulmate in his pyjamas, a gaming console clutched in his hands. "Sorry, I'll just-"

Kenma moved to exit the room when she called after him. "You can stay if you'd like," she said, welcoming him with what one could say was a fond expression. He turned back around and his eyes greedily took in her appearance: the way her lavender hair sprawled across the arm of the couch, her lilac eyes filled with serenity as they stared at him. Her hands held her book gently, cradling it as if it was a small child, absolutely precious and absolutely fragile. She wore a pair of grey sweatpants paired off with a black striped shirt. Sitting comfortably beside the couch were a pair of pearl-coloured slippers, her bare feet were dangling off the edge of the couch.