SEVEN. GF-FORHIRE
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"cap!" ichigo called out to her captain in a rush as she ran towards the opposite end of the court, dribbling the ball aggressively. she threw the ball to her captain's direction.
in a snap, heterochromatic eyes darted to the brunette's direction, her hands swiftly catching the ball that was thrown at her. she dribbled the ball as two opposing players screened her to the left and right.
the girl smirked to herself, dribbling the ball once before sidestepping to the three-point line. in a flash, the ball was shot towards the ring, catching both opposing players off guard.
the ball bounced on the gym floor, the sound reverberating through the walls like a steady rhythm.
the referee blew the whistle, signalling the end of the fourth quarter.
her eyes flashed to the digital scoreboard above the board of the ring.
64 - 51 in favor of niiyama.
a small proud smile made its way to her face as she celebrated inwardly. they dominated this practice match.
hanuka bounced towards her captain with her hands raised in the air as she went for a double high-five. "nice one!"
the captain returned the gesture, making hanuka giddier because she just got a high-five from ymari.
it was three o'clock on a lovely thursday afternoon. niiyama girls' basketball team was invited for a practice match with one of the most promising universities in miyagi. sendai sports university, near uptown sendai where the most prestigious high schools stood.
days passed since her encounter with oikawa, and since then she hasn't had an update regarding the start of the contract. but she could care less. her time was already occupied enough as it is.
she had to meet atsumu miya in hyogo again this weekend, her contract with ushijima started tonight, her recurring gaming contract that had started in november last year was ongoing, and another one was on its way. the last one wasn't a real girlfriend contract- it was simply a companionship contract. her client requested that she talk to him during times he needed somebody to listen. and after this practice match, she was going to go somewhere to meet her companionship client.
"line up." ymari blinked as she walked towards the side of the gym where the two teams were supposed to meet after the match.
"good game." they all held out their hands and slapped the opposite team's players' hands as well.
they separated as they were all going to go back to their respective schools now. the opposite team and theirs were packing their stuff up to leave.
as the captain of the team went to their side of the court where their bench resided, two out of the three best players silently conversed.
"you tell her." hanuka pushed the brunette center.
ichigo rolled her eyes at the girl, "no you tell her."
the pink haired power forward pouted, "no fair. you know she's gonna give me an earful if i'm the one that tells."
hanuka did something terrible today before their match started, her captain's phone had rung. and her being the snoopy person she is, went over and answered. it was none other than-
ichigo tsk'ed, "you fix this shit, it's your fault."
the two continued their banter before their captain finally snapped them out of it.
"oi."
their eyes snapped towards their captain, both frozen in place.
the heterochromatic girl had her duffle bag slung on her shoulder while she looked at her teammates with stoic eyes and pursed lips.
she blinked, pointing at the doorway where a certain volleyball player stood, waiting for the main character to meet him.
"what the hell is ushijima wakatoshi doing here?"
-
earlier...
the olive-haired volleyball player was exiting his classroom with his phone in his ear.
he got the occasional stares from his schoolmates that were avid volleyball fans but he simply shrugged them off and walked. classes were just about to end for him- he only had one vacant period left before the bell rang.
usually he would have after-school volleyball club activities, but since the spring qualifiers, all he's done after school was catch up on all of his missed revisions and school work. but now that he's successfully done all of those, he was home-free.
the phone rung in his ear as he waited for a certain black-haired beauty to pick up the phone.
he got told by tendō earlier that since he no longer had things to do after school, maybe he could meet up with his mentor a bit earlier than the set time. now,ushijima is a stickler for rules, but for once, tendō's suggestion sounded nice. he thought it was an okay suggestion because he figured that maybe ymari also had early dismissal during thursdays like all the other schools in the area, and doing the training earlier on thursdays could save them both some time.
it wasn't long before the said girl picked up the phone. but the voice on the other end wasn't hers.
"konnichiwa!" the not-ymari's voice greeted. "woah, client #2, who might this be?"
the boy blinked, the voice was familiar. then it clicked, it must be one of the two other girls they'd met last monday noon when they went to niiyama.
but his brows furrowed when he recalled her words, 'client #2? that is how my number is saved in her phone?'
"it's ushijima wakatoshi." he introduced himself. "is seinaru-san there?"
there was some shuffling on the other end before he head a muffled response. "yep! but she's... uh, well, she's training at the moment. we sorta have a practice match in a few minutes."
"oh."
there was a pregnant pause.
"well, um.. if you want to leave a message you can tell me and i'll just relay it to her? why'd you call anyway? wasn't the pt a one-time thing?"
'by pt, she probably means the physical therapy session that seinaru-san uses as a cover-up for her work.' ushijima thought to himself.
"we set up a long-term.. thing for the physical therapy sessions." he cleared his throat. "and i called to ask if she's free after three o'clock."
there was a slight pause on the other end before he heard aggressive whispers. the whispers were probably from the two girls he had met alongside seinaru.
"oh, we're at sendai sports uni- ow!" there was a sound of a slap and then hanuka's obvious flinch.
ushijima took in the new information.
'senspo, huh?' senspo was short for sendai sports university.
"you're not supposed to tell him!" came a different voice's aggressive whisper.
"well, i just did so-" the former cleared her throat. "as i was saying before i was so rudely interrupted..."
"we're at senspo, we'll be here until three something, but i'm sure that after that we're all home-free, right, ichihöe?"
there was a grunt of response from the other girl. "i'm not gonna be a witness to this shit, hanucünt."
there was an incredulous sigh before hanuka spoke again, "anyway, yeah. are you planning to pick cap'n up?"
ushijima blinked, "yes."
there was a giggle on the other end, "alrighty then, mr. client #2. see ya' later."
and then the call disconnected.
ushijima blinked at the blank phone screen, before a small smile graced on his lips at the thought of meeting his relationship mentor- it was barely noticeable but it was there.
-
"konnichiwa, pardon the intrusion, sensei." ushiwaka lightly bowed as he was approached by a coach inside the basketball gym he was directed to by several students.
when he stepped foot in senspo, fans flocked him from left to right, he could barely take a step towards the guidance office to ask where the gym was. luckily, some fans were not as crazy as the others and helped him get to the basketball gym before he had completely missed ymari.
"ushijima wakatoshi." the coach with the green and yellow sendai sports university tracksuit addressed the volleyball player with his mouth agape. the man was the coach for senspo's basketball team and he was a big fan of the lefty ace.
"what brings you to our school?"
ushijima blinked, "is niiyama's basketball team still here?"
the coach seemed taken aback by the sudden question as he had no clue why on earth the ace of one of the best volleyball teams in the area would look for a basketball team.
"i-yes. they're here." he answered. "hold on, let me go get their coach."
ushijima waited as the coach of senspo came to fetch niiyama's coach. it wasn't long before a tall blonde woman who looked like she was in her early forties exited the gym.
"where is- oh it's you." the blonde coach with the white and red tracksuit addressed the boy.
she could vaguely remember the students of niiyama's non-stop chattering about their star student's on-campus rendezvous with the ace of the high-ranked academy.
"the lefty of shiratorizawa? are you here for seinaru?"
he blinked, not knowing how on earth the woman knew his intentions but nodded nonetheless.
"yes, i am here for ymari seinaru." he answered. "may i know if she is busy after your practice match?"
the coach narrowed her eyes at the boy as the cogs started to turn inside her head. then, like a puzzle finally coming together, a knowing look came to her face. "are you dating seinaru?"
the boy blinked, his brows nearly knitting together in mild doubt because he didn't know how to answer that. sure he had the privilege of calling her his girlfriend as long as the contract begun, but his real purchase was the training program. the girlfriend thing was just a freebie. plus, their contract didn't start until their training starts, and so far, it hasn't begun yet.
before he could think further, the impatient coach's voice came through again. "nevermind then. come on in, the team's just packing up. after that, seinaru's free to go."
he nodded before he obeyed, following the coach.
when he entered, all eyes were on him. and it wasn't long before heterochromatic blue and hazel ones stared into his olive green ones in confusion.
then it dawned on her. she looked at her phone that had the recent call log from ushijima and mentally cursed the culprit for her actions- it was obviously hanuka. nobody in the right mind would actually touch seinaru's phone without permission.
she stood up and looked away from the boy. she stepped in front of ichigo and hanuka who were arguing about something again.
"oi."
ushijima watched as their eyes snapped towards their captain, both frozen in place. he observed the way the heterochromatic girl stared at them stoically while her duffle bag slung on her shoulder.
he knew that there was a huge possibility that his relationship mentor, seinaru-san, was not aware of the reason behind his sudden appearance in the senspo university. he could only watch as the girl sighed, probably chewing out her teammates about him coming "unannounced".
hanuka blurted out with wide eyes, "listen, i can explain-"
but she was silenced by ymari's light sigh. "don't answer calls on my phone next time."
"yes, sir." hanuka pouted, making ichigo snicker.
she then spun around and met ushijima by the door. "what's up?"
he blinked at her, "i came to pick you up. i assumed that your teammate told you already but judging from your conversation earlier, i believe that my presence here is a surprise."
she blinked at him. "woah, robo-jima, chill."
"you wanted to start training early?" she looked at his attire. he was wearing casual clothes- a pair of jeans, a gray shirt, and black shoes, but he still had his shiratorizawa jacket on.
he nodded, "i go home early on thursdays and i wanted to know if you did too so we could see the schedule earlier for thursdays."
she shook her head, "even if my classes end early, my practice still ends near 6 in the evening."
"but what about today?" he looked around. surely she was done practicing for the day.
she shrugged, "we're done for the day but i have somewhere else to be."
"oh." ushijima's was silent. his cheeks were flushed light pink as he realized he didn't have a good reason to be here anymore.
ymari noticed this and pursed her lips, "say, maybe you can go with me?"
the boy looked up at her, "where?"
she started walking, making him spin around to look at her. "to meet a client."
ushijima froze mid-step, but eventually recovered as he followed the girl who was walking out the gym.
ymari kept a straight face as she walked, ushijima falling into step beside her. they were getting an awful lot of stares from the students of senspo but she could care less. the wandering eyes of many never bothered her anyway.
"ushijima-sama." she uttered his name with such high respect, sending chills down the boy's spine.
he gulped, before humming in response. "hmm?"
the girl kept her eyes focused ahead as they walked together. "you could have ignored tendō-san's pestering about you getting a girlfriend. why didn't you?"
there was a short pause before she heard the boy answer. "i decided it would be a good learning experience."
she hummed, staring ahead at the passing students who were exiting their respective schools. "i see."
they were about to walk by the intersection between all schools in the uptown area. it was known to everybody that uptown sendai had a circle of highly-ranked schools, both secondary and tertiary. so when they were walking down the street from sendai sports university, they were going in the general direction of the intersection where other schools in the area were branched out.
there was niiyama girls academy to the north-east, johzenji high school in the north, aoba johsai in the north-east, date tech secondary and tertiary in the south-west, miyagi community college in the south-west, and sendai sports university was in the direction they were coming from, south.
with this setting, it wasn't really much of a surprise that a familiar face had crossed ymari's line of vision when they got to the middle of the intersection.
"i'm thinking about argentina's proposal-" the boy's words had died down in his throat as his footsteps slowly came to a halt, along with a confused iwaizumi who also stopped walking.
"fancy seeing you here." the student in the pristine white blazer gave her a cheeky wink and a playful wave.
ymari didn't notice but she had paused in her steps as well, with ushijima mimicking her movement.
"it's you." she blinked, giving oikawa a nod of acknowledgement, before she looked at the other person beside him in curiosity.
he had spiky dark hair and sharp dark brown eyes. his features were striking, and his figure was well-built. the fact that he was with oikawa and wearing his uniform loosely as though he'd been so used to having it off- wile having the replacement of a jersey in it's stead- was a dead giveaway that he, too was a volleyball player. she deduced that maybe this guy was the friend oikawa was talking about the other day.
"oikawa." the boy beside the girl acknowledged the captain of seijoh.
the setter's eyes trailed from ymari's face, and his small smile turned into a downturn scowl at the sight of the person beside her.
"ushijima." his tone was flat as a dark aura engulfed him. "what are you doing with this baka, chibi-chan?"
her nose lightly scrunched at the nickname her soon-to-be client had given her. that was by far the worst one she's ever gotten. i mean come on, the girl's literally 5'9 ¾! how the hell is that tiny?
"i'm 5'9 ¾." she deadpanned. the last time she checked was a two months ago, so who knew if she was 5'10 or more by now.
ushijima looked at their exchange, slightly wondering how the two knew each other but decided to keep his curiosity to himself.
oikawa took her answer as a cue to tease her, "ne, chibi-chan, you're shorter than me so that makes you chibi!"
she sighed, her eyes looking at her watch momentarily before she looked up to meet brown ones. she'd better humor the guy so she can leave soon. she cleared her throat to prepare herself for her mini-stunt.
"ne, oikawa-senpai."
her stoic tone was gone and in it's stead was a sweet voice that no one could ever pinpoint as fake. it sounded sweet and girly, but not over-the-top. the three guys in the area were slightly taken aback by the sudden switch.
"i have somewhere to be, and you're holding me back." came her sweet voice again.
"can we talk some other time about how i'm so short and you're a megane?"
when she finished, she took advantage of oikawa's shocked state to grab ushijima's arm and drag him along with her as she speedwalked towards the location she was supposed to be in five minutes ago.
"how do you know oikawa?" ushijima asked when they boarded the bus to downtown miyagi. they were sat down at the very back.
she kept a straight face as she looked out the window, "he's a friend of mine."
"was he perhaps one of your former clients?" he asked.
"no." she bit her tongue. that wasn't a lie. he wasn't her former client as much as he was just that right now.
ushijima nodded curtly, deciding not to pry because he could honestly care less. he was just around to keep the girl company while he waited for the two of them to start the training at six, not as for her life story.
he lightly sighed to himself, though he does admit that her sweet voice from earlier almost made his heart swoon.
with that thought in mind, ushijima let his thoughts wander as the bus continued to drive down the country roads.
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