Today was the first day of the start of her second year at Seidou, and the first day she was going to tutor some of the second years after their practice.
"Soooooo you're tutoring the boys now huh?" asked Kaoru's roommate Arakawa Chiyo as she was dressing in her practice uniform.
Kaoru rolled her eyes, Chiyo was a beautiful mix of boy crazy and genuine disappointment with the available guys at the school.
"Don't go getting any ideas, you know just as well as I do that there are no bachelors worth our time at this school," Kaoru laughed in response.
Chiyo groaned as she put her hair up in a braided ponytail, "Kao-chan, you don't understand how hard it is for me that your brother doesn't go to school here," she said with a cheeky grin.
Tilting her head to the side, Kaoru looked thoughtfully at her friend, "you think my brother is cute?" She truthfully never thought about her brother as being attractive to girls.
Chiyo looked at her friend incredulously, "you're joking? He's easily the finest man I have seen in real life!" Kaoru couldn't hide her laughter as she shook her head at her friend.
"Please don't ever talk about that volleyball freak like that ever again," she said with a laugh, "but if you want, I'll put in a good word to him for you."
Chiyo broke out into a little happy dance, "pleaseeee! Send him some of my highlights too while you're at it, I'm pretty sure that's the only way athletes flirt," she said.
"Sure thing, now please stop distracting me, I'm trying to prepare for tonight," Kaoru responded as she looked back at her notes.
Chiyo hummed in response before moving to peer over her friend's shoulder at the notes, "are you nervous to be in a room with a bunch of baseball idiots?" she asked.
Kaoru laughed a little, "not really," she said placing a finger on her chin as she thought about it, "I have a class with a lot of them and the others will hopefully be easy to teach."
Chiyo stared at her friend for a bit before smiling, it had been a while since she saw her looking alive. It was a subtle difference, but it was like the light was reignited in Kaoru's eyes.
"Well, none of those boys better fall in love with our beauty queen. I have first dibs on you if my plans with your brother fall through," she said with a laugh, "My last name will be Bokuto no matter what," Chiyo added with a wink.
Staring at her friend blankly, Kaoru tried to process what she had said, "yeah okay, good luck with that," she said with a smile, dismissing Chiyo's nonsense.
Grabbing her gear, Chiyo blew a kiss and waved goodbye to her "tell me everything when I get back!"
"Now, time to get this all sorted so I don't embarrass myself," Kaoru muttered to herself. She may not have been nervous to actually teach the subjects since school came as naturally to her as breathing.
But there was one thing - or rather one person - that had her nerves on edge, Miyuki Kazuya.
He had no problems with school, had no reason to be there tonight and yet he stopped her in the hall with a shit-eating grin to tell her he couldn't wait for her to "tutor him."
Kaoru let out a groan, he had said that in front of a bunch of his fangirls too, as if her life was too easy without his teasing.
'If he really does come tonight, I might have to throw something at him,' she thought. Maybe he'll be too busy, Kuramochi said that the first years were a lot to handle this year.
Her schedule was filled to the brim each week. Before school had begun, she had been allowed to participate in the softball team's cardio workouts.
Now she was stuck just attending school every day like a normal student. And after school ended on Mondays and Wednesdays she would be tutoring the second years.
As if the second years weren't enough to work with, on Tuesdays and Thursdays she would be tutoring the first years.
And of course Coach Kataoka added something to her Fridays. She should attend their practice to go over hitting strategies with the captain Yuuki and see the teams hitting prowess in person.
She had wanted to roll her eyes a little when he gave her the schedule. 'It's as if he never noticed that the softball team shared an indoor batting cage with the boys during the winter,' she had thought.
She already knew what she wanted to focus on with them, her softball obsessed brain came in handy even with baseball.
Before she knew it, it was time to head over to the baseball team's classroom. Kaoru quickly tied her hair in a messy side pony before pulling on a pair of leggings and a cropped hoodie.
Grabbing her materials, she ran out of her dorm straight to the classroom. She had to get there before the guys so she wouldn't be caught off guard.
Walking into the classroom, she looked around grinning in triumph when it was empty. "Alright, let's get to work~" she sang to herself with a smile.
Once everything was set up, she allowed herself to relax. Sitting down at the front of the room, she looked at her texts, surprised to see one from her brother.
"Kao-chan~ I just heard from mom that you are tutoring the baseball team
tonight, DO YOU NEED ME TO COME PROTECT YOU!"
Laughing at her brother's text, Kaoru tried to type a response before her phone buzzed with yet another text, and then another. All from Kotaro.
"Akaajshi said I am overreacting!!"
Kaoru went to read the next text when a picture of Kotaro and Kuroo from Nekoma appeared on her screen.
"Kuroo said he will come too! We'll take the train and be there in 20 minutes!!!"
Staring at the picture of the two of them left Kaoru dumbfounded, had her brother always been this overprotective? And since when was Kuroo involved?
Sighing, Kaoru typed a quick response before this could get any more out of hand.
"Nii-san, please do not overreact. Listen to Akaashi-kun and please spell his
name correctly next time. Do not show up at my school or I will block you on sms"
Speech bubbles began to form after her text was marked read before a voice distracted her from her brother's response.
"Kaoru-san, it's good to see you!" Kawakami shyly called out. Kaoru placed her phone in her pocket, ignoring whatever response Kotaro had thought up.
"Kawakami-kun!" she smiled a greeting, "I'm thankful you're here, though you're doing great in class so you definitely don't need my help!"
Kawakami blushed lightly in response to the praise, his reply interrupted by a snarky remark from behind him. "Kaoru-san, what do I have to do to get praised like that?" asked Miyuki with a fake pout.
Staring blankly at Miyuki, Kaoru looked him up and down before completely ignoring his presence and greeting Kuramochi instead.
"Mochi-san, I expected to see you here! Ready to master some chemical solutions?" she asked with an enthusiastic smile at her friend.
Miyuki stood there in disbelief, had she really just ignored him as if he were nothing more than a speck of dirt on her shoe?
And to talk to Kawakami and Kuramochi of all people instead of him! Watching her greet each of the second years while still ignoring him had him grinning to himself.
'Interesting,' he thought, 'this will be so much fun.' His second year was turning out to be filled with interesting people, just the thought of being able to get a reaction out of both Kaoru and Eijun made him grin to himself.
Once everyone was seated, Kaoru stood at the front of the room with all eyes on her. She began to feel slightly uncomfortable with the growing silence and decided to break it with a joke.
"Hi everyone, I am Bokuto Kaoru, a second year student and your tutor for all subjects." she began, "I was going to share a joke I heard from my brother about vegetables, but it's corny."
Unfortunately... She doesn't know any jokes. The silence was deafening as the class just stared at her. To avoid further embarrassment, Kaoru stared back at them with a blank face.
'What was that?! Why did I use one of Kotaro's stupid jokes?!' she internally screamed. 'I'm so embarrassed I want to die, but I can't show it.'
"A-Anyways, let's start with some introductions, I know most of you but there are a few of you that I've never talked to or seen before," she said bluntly.
Kuramochi broke into laughter, "Kaoru-san how do you expect us to ignore that introduction, hyahah" he said through gasping breaths.
Kaoru felt heat rush to her face, her cheeks were lit up red as she yelled at Kuramochi, "Mochi-san! Please just allow me to move on!" she groaned as the rest of the room broke into laughter.
After a moment of embarrassment, a grin appeared on Kaoru's face as the blush faded, "I know you're struggling with Chemistry Mochi-san so you better be kind to me if you want to play this year," a dark aura surrounded her as he shivered.
"Kaoru-san, I had no idea you had an evil side!" Kuramochi cried in surprise, it reminded him of a certain someone, glancing at Miyuki out of the corner of his eye.
Clapping her hands together, her sweet smile returned to her face as she completely ignored Kuramochi's last comment and breezed into forced introductions. Once she had heard everyone's name and their struggle topic she was ready to begin.
"Okay, it's a good thing that I wrote out practice questions for every subject, I had no idea the topics would be so varied," she said as she grabbed a stack of papers.
Sifting through, she placed a specific packet on each person's desk according to their struggle topic. Weaving in and out of the aisles of chairs and tables, she eventually reached Miyuki's seat.
Sifting through the papers, she produced a special packet with a sticky note titled "Miyuki Kazuya" on it. Ignoring his questioning gaze, she smiled and placed the packet on his desk.
As she began explaining the individual packets and delving deeper into each subject, Miyuki tuned her out as he looked through the stack of papers on his desk.
His eyes widened at the content, he had originally come here just to mess with her as he had started to enjoy doing so. But he didn't expect her to be this thorough.
Inside was a comprehensive list of each of their classes together and the upcoming homework with detailed explanations. He was taken aback by her attention to detail.
She even added handwritten notes on certain questions with comments like "You missed this in class," or "this one is hard for me, it might be for you too."
Chuckling to himself, Miyuki looked back up to the front of the classroom where she was scolding Maezono for not listening to her.
'This year will definitely be a lot of fun,' he thought as he got to work going over the coursework.
Once the tutoring session was over, and the boys had all left the room, Kaoru allowed herself to sink into a chair.
'That was so much work,' she thought. Exhausted from the attention and mingling she had to do. She had been close with Mochi and Kawakami since their first year and Miyuki was just Miyuki - someone she rarely, but easily talked to.
But everyone else was pretty new to her and that was draining on her social battery. Rolling her shoulders back, she cringed at the pop of her left arm. A constant reminder of what will never be.
'Stop it, don't think about it,' she scolded herself, 'it just hurts you to think about,' she said mentally. Stretching, she decided it was time to head back to the dorm.
"Chiyo-chan is probably waiting," she said aloud, her words echoing throughout the empty room.
Walking back to the girls dorm, she continued the mental battle of not thinking about softball. Which was extra difficult when she walked into her room to the smell of dirt. Seeing the discarded cleats outside the door, she sighed.
"Chiyo-chan~" she called out a greeting once in the room. The usually cheerful girl was laying face down on the ground in silence.
Kaoru was startled with worry, kneeling down by her friend, "Chiyo-chan what's wrong?!" she asked quickly. The blonde girl looked up at her friend, slowly raising her phone to show her the cause of her distress.
Glancing at the phone, Kaoru smacked Chiyo's head lightly. "Are you kidding me? You're depressed because an idol is dating!" she yelled at her.
Chiyo whined in response, "I had goals! I was going to become a famous softball player, meet him at an event and get married!" she cried.
Rolling her eyes, Kaoru moved to put her things away. "You're hopeless, he's 37, I would hope he would have a girlfriend," she said with a laugh.
Chiyo didn't respond, but she did get off the floor and move to her bed to continue mourning. "How was practice?" Kaoru asked softly.
Biting her lip, Chiyo hesitated. She had grown to hate that question from her beloved friend. Pushing her blonde hair back she sighed, "Coach Yukiko was on one today, we had to run like crazy," she replied.
She was relieved when Kaoru laughed, "that's the worst, was it because of bunting drills again?" she asked, a smile on her face.
Chiyo laughed with her, "yes! One person messes up and suddenly it's everyone's fault." The two continued to talk about practice and reminisce about the old days when Kaoru stood, stretching from her bed.
"I'm going to grab a tea, I have a late night of homework ahead of me, do you want anything?" she asked, Chiyo was already under the covers of her bed, a half asleep look on her face.
Smiling at her friend, Kaoru said goodnight, she knew that the team had early morning practice tomorrow. Closing the door behind her softly, she walked out towards the vending machine.
The air was crisp and the sky clear, it felt perfect outside. Grabbing her tea, Kaoru went and wandered towards the softball field.
She sat on the grass overlooking the field as she listened to the breeze. She knew she probably shouldn't be doing this to herself, just being here made her heart squeeze painfully.
Checking her phone, she saw the last text from her brother - or rather Kuroo - through her brother's phone.
"Kaoru-chan, your idiot nii-san heard a first year call you hot and panicked that
you are in danger at your school, we are working to hold him back,"
She chuckled reading his message when she saw a text from an unknown number appear.
"Please send your brother a text when you're able so he can fully calm down - Akaashi"
Those volleyball idiots were too much sometimes. She made a mental note to call her brother tomorrow and let him know that she was safe.
Doing it now wouldn't be honest considering she was currently out wandering around at night alone, but the school's campus was pretty safe in her mind, and she figured she could probably outrun any would-be assailants.
Looking at the field again, she felt a mix of peace and sadness wash over her. She didn't need to wear a mask here, she could just be herself.
No one to smile for or pretend her shoulder doesn't still hurt and that her heart isn't still shattered. No one needed to know about her tears. Not her roommate, not her brother. It was a safe place to mourn.
Curling into a ball, Kaoru continued to cry, resting her chin on her knees. She wasn't crying loudly, just silent tears.
There was no need to hide her face since no sane athlete was still out and about at this late hour.
Keyword: sane.
Hearing a crash behind her, Kaoru jumped to her feet, whipping around only to find a very embarrassed member of the baseball team.
He was looking at her with wide eyes and tightly clutching a car tire in his arms. The two stared at each other for a second before Kaoru quickly wiped her tears, grabbed her tea and bolted for her room.
She wanted to scream in embarrassment but was also genuinely confused at what she had seen. What was he thinking training this late? Should she tell someone he was out past curfew?
Facepalming, Kaoru nearly laughed, 'who am I a teacher? How would I explain that I was out past curfew too,' she thought.
Shaking her head, she slowly opened her door and carefully snuck back into her dorm. 'Hopefully that kid knows to keep his mouth shut about being out past curfew, and hopefully he didn't notice I was crying,' she thought.
She should have known better.
Sawamura Eijun has a loud mouth.