note: hinata didn't leave his shoes in their practice gym near jaybird inn. instead, he left them in the locker room backstage assigned to karasuno.
FORTY-ONE. GF-FORHIRE
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back at the gym, keishin ukai warns the team that the floor is different from what they are use to and it will be harder for them to slide on.
he encourages them to work up sweat in order to reduce the friction and lessen the chance of possible injuries. so, when the game before them ends, daichi leads the team onto the court to start warming up. ukai comes to realize that the height of the ceiling may pose a possible threat to them as the size of the gym may cause the players to take longer to adjust to when it comes to sense of distance.
at this point, everyone was already warming up. but among the team of black, white, and orange, certain blonde was nowhere to be found.
yamaguchi looked around, not spotting his megane best friend anywhere, "hey guys, have you seen tsukki?"
hinata, who was acting as the ball boy as he waited for kiyoko to retrieve his shoes that he left in the locker rooms looked at yamaguchi. "tsukishima still hasn't returned?"
kageyama, who was previously discussing pre-game nerves with sugawara overheard their conversation and frowned.
sugawara noticed this and decided to console the official setter, "tsukishima will be back soon, don't worry."
"i'm not worried about him." kageyama immediately answered, tossing a ball and then receiving it.
sugawara sweatdropped, "then why do you look so tense?"
"he's somewhere he shouldn't be." the setter answered, setting the ball again.
"and who are you to dictate where i should and shouldn't be?" the familiar voice of the tall megane condescendingly asked.
kageyama turned around and eyed him in suspicion. "where have you been?"
"i'm sorry, your highness. but as far as i know, you don't need to know everything about me." tsukishima rolled his eyes at the setter.
sugawara noticed the tension between the two and nudged daichi.
daichi saw this and frowned. "hey quit it. warm-up is almost over."
tsukishima glared at kageyama one last time before deciding to brush past him forcibly. in a low tone, he spoke. "seinaru-san will be cheering for me."
kageyama stiffened, while tsukishima looked back at him with a mocking smirk on his face. "don't get jealous now, your highness. we've got a game ad we can't afford a broken setter."
tsukishima continued walking, while kageyama walked away, approaching asahi who wanted to practice spiking.
the two seniors, sugawara and daichi just looked on worriedly. there was obvious tension between the two first years, and they both heard the familiar surname of a basketball athlete that seemed to be a constant topic in their everyday conversations.
"tsukishima said 'seinaru', right?" daichi asked in mild disbelief. "it wasn't just me?"
"mhm." sugawara hummed. "i only heard her name too, so i didn't quite get what they were talking about. i wonder why it got kageyama so riled up though.."
"huh? why were they talking about shekinah-senpai?" hinata asked his seniors after overhearing their conversation, now wearing his volleyball shoes that kiyoko had just delivered.
"ah, we honestly have no idea." sugawara scratched the back of his head.
the ginger had a small plastic bag in his hands, and the two seniors took notice of it.
"woah, what's that?" sugawara pointed at the bag. "we're not allowed to have snacks during games."
hinata finally remembered why he approached the small group in the first place, "oh!"
"kiyoko-san asked me to give this to kageyama." hinata told them.
before the seniors could cry at the fact that kiyoko had taken interest in a kouhai, the ginger continued. "she said it's from shekinah-senpai."
tsukishima, who was now walking towards the net passed by them, heard the girl's name, and frowned.
so kageyama was also getting special treatment from her today. way to make him feel special.
he tsk'ed, and it didn't go unnoticed by his best friend who was at the scene as well.
yamaguchi, who was standing next to the ginger looked on in curiosity as tsukki passed by and gave them the cold shoulder. he had never seen tsukki get riled up by.. a mere mention of a girl, and neither has he ever heard tsukki talk about the olympic athlete other than when they were with the team one evening and they saw seinaru walk out of her house to apparently go to some type of sleepover. so, seeing him like this and overhearing his senpais say that they'd heard the blonde utter the girl's name came as a shock to him.
"i'll go ahead and hand this over to kageyama." sugawara offered, taking the bag from hinata who nodded gratefully at him.
he then looked at the two juniors, "you guys go ahead and make the most of this time to warm up, 'kay? we've got five minutes left."
the two nodded eagerly.
but yamaguchi was still wondering why on earth his best friend was pissed off at the mention of the girl giving kageyama some snacks, and why he even said the olympic athlete's name.
and hinata..
hinata was grinning to himself, because hearing about kageyama getting riled up because of tsukishima saying his senior, seinaru's name proved his theory right.
he looked at his palm with a grin and bubbled out a small laugh. "got ya', bakageyama."
as he went over to ask nishinoya for a set- since kageyama was too busy eating something shekinah-senpai had given him—, his eyes suddenly caught sight of a familiar face structure from the stands where the japan national women's youth basketball team was seated. he saw a girl with long, wavy white hair, an all-white outfit, and a mask covered the entirety of her face.
his eyes narrowed.
she looks very familiar.
at the corner of his eye, he saw tsukishima eyeing the same girl.
he blinked.
he looked at the girl who waved cheekily at tsukishima.
he looked at tsukishima who now had a light shade of blush covering his cheeks.
he then looked back at the girl's retreating back that faded to the exit of the stands.
he then looked back at tsukishima who was covering half of his face to hide his now-very red cheeks.
for a split-second, hinata's animalistic tendencies were no more as he embodied albert starstein, figuring out who the girl was and why the megane was blushing.
a knowing smirk covered his lips, "got ya' too, stingyshima."
hinata knew what was up.
-
"who was that?" takemichi asked utsui once she had returned to her seat.
the brunette simply shrugged, knowing that she was asking about the white haired girl from earlier. "a friend."
"she's hot." jordan commented. "is she single?"
"nope." utsui popped the 'p', crossing her arms over her chest. "she's straight and taken."
"aww~" jordan pouted.
"what's her name?" ryuguji asked.
utsui thought over what fake name she could introduce seinaru as. a smile fell upon her face when she finally got one that suited the girl the most.
"heather."
-
it was an unfortunate battle for karasuno. their setter and decoy didn't get to sync up. it was primarily because kageyama was too busy eating a pack of gelatin during the last few minutes of warm-ups to get enough spatial awareness for his precision setting.
huh, wonder who that gelatin came from.
ymari was walking behind the stands, looking for someone when she caught sight of karasuno's game versus tsubakihara.
12-15, in favor of tsubakihara gakuen.
well, she certainly didn't expect that score.
she glanced at kageyama who seemed to be eerily calm for a game. she figured he was just getting adjusted to the new environment. She was told by ukai not too long ago, while she still trained with them, that the height of the ceiling and the environment-slash-gym affects the setter greatly. she could only guess that kageyama was having a hard time during the first few minutes of the game.
at the corner of her eye, she saw familiar tufts of bleached blonde hair and a dark undercut— just who she was looking for. she blinked, making her way over to the blonde who didn't seem to take notice of her presence just yet.
she saw that his eyes were focused on the court. she followed his gaze and stared in awe at what she saw.
"right on the mark." kageyama mentally pointed out as he set the ball at utmost precision, straight into hinata's awaiting hand.
hinata hits the ball past tsubakihara's jersey number 1 and jersey number 8 who were too slow to stop the quick attack from karasuno's best.
"sorry to keep you waiting." kageyama gave a side-glance to his teammates who cheered.
ymari smiled to herself.
so kageyama finally got used to the new environment, huh?
"and there it is, karasuno's lethal weapon! the quick attack of the first years, hinata and kageyama!" the announcers cheered.
"we finally got to see it." the co-announcer commented with a satisfied grin.
"the height of the hitter who just scored, hinata shoyo, is 164cm! he's the shortest hitter out of our team lineups today!" the first announcer informed the crowd that was in awe.
"oh man that was so fast!" the crowd cheered. "so cool!"
"huh?" the blonde in front of ymari hummed to himself as his eyes fixated on tobio kageyama who was being complimented by his team. "his expression's totally changed from the training camp."
his eyes narrowed, "scary."
his golden brown eyes then moved over to the orange haired boy from karasuno, "not ta' mention... who the hell is he?"
"aren't you curious?" ymari finally made her presence known to the blonde.
atsumu miya blinked in shock, now just finding out that someone was behind him the whole time. It was a white haired girl with creepy emerald green eyes.
he looked at her with a disgusted expression, assuming that she was probably one of the squealing pigs he hated the most. "eh? who the hell are ya'?"
ymari rolled her eyes at him, "is that a way to greet your girlfriend?"
atsumu looked at her weirdly, ready to retort when the girl sighed.
the girl took off her mask and then looked expectantly at the blonde. her hands spread out on each side before, awaiting a greeting– "well?"
atsumu's eyes widened in disbelief and he spent no time in engulfing the girl in a hug. "ymari!"
she grinned, hugging him back. "that's it."
they both pulled back from the hug and atsumu started showering her with questions.
"why is– what– yer eyes are– how is yer hair– and why are ya' wearing that?" his words were so fast that she only caught snippets of it.
she shook her head at him with a light laugh. "I have somewhere to be."
atsumu blinked at her, "where?"
"just somewhere." she vaguely described. she then looked at him. "i was looking for you for three reasons."
"the first reason, being this." she handed him a small black carrier. It was something she had utsui bring to their exhibition game prior.
atsumu looked at it and asked, "what's inside?"
"lunch." she shrugged. "i wouldn't be a good girlfriend if i didn't give you food, now would i?"
atsumu visibly brightened at the mention of the word, 'girlfriend'. that's right, even though she was basically on break for one more week, she was his girlfriend.
"is it–"
"teriyaki chūtoro." she answered. "you told me your favorite food was fatty tuna, so i used the kitchen in my hotel room and–"
"arigato!" atsumu engulfed her in a hug once more.
ymari's cheeks suddenly flushed red as she patted his back, she found the sudden display of affection very sweet.
they separated from the hug. she looked at him.
"as for the second reason.." she then apologized with her head lowered. "gomenasai. i wouldn't be a good girlfriend if I didn't say sorry.."
atsumu was taken aback by her sudden action. "what—"
"i'm apologizing ahead of time for what's about to happen." she continued to lower her head. she then looked back up.
atsumu looked at her with a confused expression on his face. "what's about to happen?"
she blinked at him, before pointing towards the cheer squad that were situating themselves at the karasuno stands. the karasuno cheerers were very confused, until one of them— the leader— approached a member of the neighborhood association team, takinoue. they seemed to be talking about something, before he grinned happily.
"what.." atsumu trailed off, before his thoughts were disturbed by the sudden banging of the drums.
"everyone!" the announcer bellowed through the microphone. "we'll have to pause all the games in the stadium to give way to an intermission number from japan's olympic cheer team!"
the cheerers wearing the olympic cheer uniform all paraded down the stands of karasuno and made their way onto the center court.
they all found their places on the court while everyone was whispering about what the hell was happening.
the head cheerleader, the girl with her black hair in a high ponytail was given a microphone.
"konnichiwa japan!" she yelled through the mic.
everyone gave an energetic 'hello!' back to the girl.
she grinned, "we are japan's olympics co-ed cheer team. as nippon representatives, we wish all of you good luck in your current and upcoming games."
"but right now, we are here to cheer for a specific team." she continued. "karasuno from miyagi prefecture, let me hear you!"
the entire stadium's crowd, not knowing what else to do, just cheered along loudly.
she grinned, handing the phone back to a technical member of the staff. the banging of drums continued as the cheer team did somersaults, cartwheels, and flashy routines that made the crowd go wild and cheer for karasuno as well.
atsumu's eyes widened as he looked back at ymari. "you.."
"i apologize." she says.
"you know i'm from miyagi prefecture. i pulled strings to support our representative." she reasoned out, still with her head down.
"i should be doing this for you, since i'm your girlfriend." she explained through her teeth. "but you have a cheer team already. it would be rude of me to impose it upon your prefecture. and, miyagi is my home, so it's only right that i—"
"what's the third reason?" atsumu cut her off.
she looked at him, then blinked. "hold on, i'm still not done—"
"it's fine. there's nothing to apologize about." he shrugged.
she was just being patriotic to her prefecture.
so what if tobio-kun was there?
so what if she pulled strings for..
in his mind, she pulled strings for tobio-kun.
but so what, right?
"what's the third reason you looked for me?" atsumu repeated his earlier question.
seinaru blinked. "oh.."
"i came to wish you good luck." she nodded at him with a smile.
atsumu's cheeks reddened and his heart warmed at her sweet gesture. but his earlier envy from the cheer team that was currently doing their flamboyant routines on the court was overpowering his emotions right now.
"you wouldn't be a good girlfriend if you didn't give me a good luck kiss, now would you?" even he couldn't believe what he just said.
but the reaction from his girlfriend wasn't what he had expected. "oh.. is that all?"
not even two seconds later, he felt something warm touch the very corner of his lips. his cheeks immediately burned a bright shade of red and his heart started convulsing into different rhythms inside his chest.
"was that okay?" seinaru asked.
but atsumu couldn't answer without fainting because of the giddy feeling in his chest.
the girl simply smiled.
atsumu.
despite having a twin..
he's truly one of a kind.
-
karasuno had just won their match against tsubakihara and were officially advancing to the second round of the spring tournament.
so while their match for the day was over, they all decided to eat their lunch while watching the game of their rival team from tokyo.
while eating their bento's, karasuno watches nekoma's game against kiyokawa. kiyokawa's ace, ryoji yamazaki, lands a spike past yaku but the next attempt is picked up by the nekoma libero. yamazaki continues to make numerous spike attempts but nekoma is able to receive each one.
"oh, man.." asahi held his two hands in front of his face in a praying position— but it certainly looked like he was keeping himself from vomiting out of anxiety. "this is hard. this is so exhausting.."
"you're empathizing way too much with kiyokawa's ace." sugawara tried to calm him down, but the karasuno ace still looked panicked and anxious.
daichi continues to eat the banana that was packed along with his bento lunch as he compliments nekoma's movements. "those are some nice receives."
sugawara nodded, "yup."
his eyes then flitted back to the court, where nekoma was at. however, a flash of white entered his vision. his brows furrowed when he saw that there was a white haired girl loitering on nekoma's side of the court.
"hey, is that lev's older sister?" the vice captain asked, pointing at the girl with a mask.
daichi looked where he was pointing at and shrugged, "lev has a sister?"
"yeah, yaku told me about her. he tells me about every girl he meets, really." sugawara grinned. "that guy has a thing for taller women, i swear."
asahi also looked at the girl on the court.
she was just..
standing there..
creepily.
he didn't know how it happened, but the girl managed to make eye contact with him. he instantly froze.
she has very scary green eyes!
the girl looked away from him, making him sigh in relief.
who is that girl?
"she looks familiar though." daichi noted, looking at the girl too. he then swallowed the banana in his mouth. "maybe she is lev's sister, cos'they kind of look alike"
their conversation about the white-haired girl was cut short when nishinoya and tanaka made their way towards their seniors.
"hey you guys!" he grinned. "we were talking about the olympic cheer team earlier!"
tanaka nodded enthusiastically. "we talked to takinoue-san said it was a gift from a prefecture representative. they didn't say who though."
daichi glanced at them, "we should find out who it was and thank them formally. the cheer team really brought up the team's spirits earlier."
the rest of them agreed.
back at the court, the white haired girl was now walking towards the gym bags after asking for permission from the head coach. she had placed something inside and zipped it up immediately. and just like that, she disappeared into the back of the stadium again.
nekoma was playing at their 100%.
there was a spike from the opposing team, but kuroo was quick on his feet.
"one touch!" he grinned as he dropped back to his feet after jumping up.
kenma, who was surprisingly moving around too much today, sets to a wing-spiker. "fukunaga!"
fukunaga lands a back corner shot, which signified the end of the match— as they win the game for nekoma with a score of 25-21.
as kuroo cheers along with his team, he drags kenma along with him.
"all right!" the red and black team celebrated their win.
they were officially advancing to the second round of the spring tournament.
"kenma!" their coach called as they were all making their way back to the benches.
"huh?" the setter blinked tiredly at his coach, he wanted nothing more than to sleep right now. sleeping next to yma-chan, may be better, but he'll take whatever kind of sleep he can right now.
"a lovely lady came here earlier." nekomata smiled at the blonde. "she left something in your bag."
kenma blinked. a lovely lady?
he quickly opened his bag, and gazed inside. every nekoma player also looked on curiously.
"hey! no way, was it your girlfriend?" yamamoto cried anime tears.
yaku grinned as he gave kenma's back an encouraging pat, "nice one, kenma."
kuroo narrowed his eyes at the item inside kenma's bag as he pouted sourly.
it was a clear container with two slices of apple pie in it. on top of the container was a sticky note. in neat cursive, the words written were—
"congratulations, ken-ken. i knew you'd win." lev read it out loud with wide eyes. he squealed. "woah! kenma-san really has a girlfriend!"
kenma looked away, "who told you i had one?"
"kuroo-san!" the first years chorused.
kenma glared at the back of kuroo's head— the bed head was going to escape with his bag.
"kuroo." kenma scowled.
kuroo flinched, then shooting the boy a guilty grin. "hey, they had to know!"
the issue died down as they made their way to the stands to eat the bentos their assistant coach had ordered for them.
he clutched his gym bag's strap when he felt that it was a bit heavier than usual. he blinked twice before opening it.
there was a glass bottled brazo black coffee from starcoffee. it was sealed— brand new. there was a note attached to it.
'you did well dori-chin.' was written on the note in the same cursive as kenma's.
'huh, coffee.'
he hid it back in his back, and nobody noticed. he smiled to himself as a faint blush littered his cheeks.
it would be better if she had sent him something a bit sweeter, though.
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