"I told you, I'm fine."
For the first time since meeting Ai, Atsumu grinned at the sound of her voice (even if it sounded irritated and far too defensive). After shaking himself out of his earlier trance, Atsumu ran after Ai with an urge to check on her and give her a pat on the back, but by the time he caught up with her, her friends found Ai first.
Atsumu was still cringing at the memory of their high-pitched voices laden with panic and worry, but he was surprisingly glad Ai had some people in her corner.
Yuki and Chiyo were busy fretting over Ai's busted lip when Atsumu slid into the nurse's office. He eyed Aiko rifling through a cabinet, looking for ointment, and cleared his throat.
He never thought the day would come—when he'd develop a nervous sweat upon the gaze of four second-year girls. At first, all four pairs of eyes were of a cautioned caliber, prepared to kick him out, but then they realized who he was. Aiko shrugged and faced the cabinet once more; Chiyo frowned, but she gave Atsumu a curt nod before she gave Ai her full attention; Yuki continued to stare Atsumu down like he was enemy number one; and Ai raised her eyebrows at him, wondering what he was doing there.
"What are you doing here?" Yuki crosses her arms, her aura turning fiery and lethal—like Ai's injury was all his fault.
Regularly, Atsumu might have had an offense to that alone, but he found Yuki's effort amusing and endearing. There was a point in life where Atsumu probably would have found her intimidating, but as it was, he'd been around people like Kita and Ai for a while now. Yuki had nothing on their daunting gazes and ice-cold auras.
"Came to check on my manager," He replies, taking great care to sound unaffected and bored. "There a problem with that, four-eyes?"
"That the best ya got, Ass-umu?" Yuki bounces back. Previously, she'd been sitting at Ai's bedside, but when her anger flared, she took a stance before the bed, as if Ai needed her protection. "You've got some balls on you to come here, mister star setter. This is all your fault."
Atsumu scowls, ready to tear Yuki a new one by the nickname alone, but to hear that, sure enough, she was blaming him. It caught Atsumu off guard.
"Th'hell you mean it's my fault?! Did I punch Kimura? No! It was that crazy fan, whats-her-name—"
"If you lot had taken no for an answer, she wouldn't have been attacked in the first place!"
"I don't even want her on the fuckin' team!" Atsumu yells back in the heat of the moment, only to regret the words the second they came out of his mouth...which confused him greatly.
This morning, if someone had told Atsumu he was second-guessing finding a way to kick Ai out, he'd have laughed in their face and threatened them not to mess with him. Now, however?
It was absolutely not because he witnessed her fight with her sharp tongue and fists, and win—that'd just be plain silly to start liking Ai after that...but for some reason, Atsumu was finally wrapping his head around her sticking around, and without a complaint. Hell, he'd even come here to see if she was okay. That had to say something, right?
"Alright, that's enough—" Ai starts, preparing to separate Yuki and Atsumu before they turn into a couple of feral foxes...Until her brain finally registered what Atsumu said. "Wait, how did you know I was attacked in the first place? And by a fangirl, nonetheless?"
"Oh, er—" Atsumu sputters, visibly reddening with embarrassment and possible shame. "I...saw....it?"
While Chiyo gasps, and Aiko makes a loud slamming noise, Yuki laughs darkly.
"That's even worse! You saw it happen and didn't do anything? Did you get off on watching someone try to hurt yer manager? I don't care how much you don't like Ai, Ass-umu, that's positively fucked. Yer fucked. In the head! How in the hell do you have so many fangir—"
"It wasn't like that!" Atsumu yells at Yuki, trying to get her to stop—she was almost as bad as Ai when she was on a tangent. Then he locks eyes with Ai and repeats himself, absentmindedly scared she'd believe what Yuki was accusing him of. "It wasn't like that, Kimura. I-I may be an ass, but I don't usually jus' sit there when people are fighting. Or get wrongfully attacked."
"Then what were ya doin'?" Aiko asks when she turns up beside him, a tube of ointment in one hand and a handful of Q-tips in the other. She's frowning at Atsumu, clearly disappointed that he let her precious Ai-chan get hurt, but she isn't hostile like Yuki. Just curious.
"It's none of yer goddamn—" Atsumu begins to say harshly, but then he stops and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He just wanted to make sure Ai was okay, that was all, but getting questioned to the third degree made him want—no, need—to defend himself. "Everything happened so fast, alright? Every time I wanted to step in, those two moved like the Flash."
Evidently, that was the right answer, because Chiyo, the one girl who hadn't said a single thing, beamed at Atsumu and said, "I knew you weren't a total jerk. Why don't ya sit down? As soon as we apply some medicine on Mura-chan's lip, we're done."
—
"It's just a busted lip." Ai comments for the umpteenth time. Her lip had already been medicated with a thick layer of ointment for a while now, but for some reason, Ai's three friends wanted her to rest longer, as if she hurt her leg instead of her lip.
To be honest, she'd been over all the fawning and fretting back when they first saw her injury.
She was practically pouting—or whatever her version of a pout fest was, considering she wasn't the type to show her emotions visibly. However, it was clear to Atsumu and the girls that Ai wasn't happy. She kept repeating how good she was, occasionally sighing, refusing to look at anyone, and crossing her arms tight against her chest.
A simple (and incredibly small) injury and they were acting like it was the end of the world. Ai didn't understand it. All of her past friends would look at her busted lip and shrug it off—but then again, they were all fellow volleyball players, each accustomed to an occasional injury like this.
However, Chiyo, Yuki, and Aiko were not used to seeing a friend hurt, and when Ai realized that, her heart melted.
Meanwhile, Atsumu had been quiet ever since Aiko and Yuki got him to spill, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. He had no mind to speak, lest Yuki call him Ass-amu again, but his amusement was growing with every passing second. Sure enough, he didn't dislike Ai when he wasn't starting a fight with her, and when she wasn't embarrassing him with her clever insults.
"Oh, right." Ai murmurs, remembering something, and then she looks at Atsumu. "Shouldn't you be at practice by now?"
'How th'hell did I completely forget about practice?' Atsumu internally wonders as a hefty wave of terror forms in his gut. Just what would Kita think—no, what will Kita do?
Still, once he looks back at Ai who stares at him expectantly, Atsumu can't find it in him to leave. He couldn't place it, place why, but he wanted to stay in the nurse's office. With Ai.
'Weird.'
"I'll text 'Samu," Atsumu declares, already taking his cell phone out of his pants pocket when Ai stops him.
"Practice is already halfway over," Ai says, gesturing at the large clock hanging on the wall. "He wouldn't have his phone on him, right?"
It took everything in Atsumu not to shiver. A displeased or disappointed Kita, captain or not, was no trifling matter. And when he thought about his brother and teammates teasing him...well, Atsumu was not fond of this idea. Was it too late to transfer schools? He could get away with it if he studied abroad, maybe—
"I should probably join you," Ai says, slipping off the bed before her friends can stop her. It doesn't prevent them from voicing their concerns, however.
Chiyo frowns, grabbing Ai's forearm when she says, "Mura-chan, you still need rest!"
"The team isn't so desperate and pathetic that they'd wither without you for a single day. Stay a bit longer, alright?" Yuki adds, adjusting her glasses.
"We can always go to that bakery you told us about instead! I don't have soccer practice today, so let's have some fun!" Aiko finishes, grinning ear to ear, sure that Ai would give in.
"No. I'll be going now." Ai declares, not convinced in the slightest. Her cold front had come back something fierce—until she reminded herself the three were doing this out of care and worry, and her gaze softened up the smallest of fractions. "Thank you, but I'm honestly feeling fine. I've had far worse injuries and still practiced for hours back in middle school."
"Worse than a big and swollen busted li—?!" Chiyo squeals, only to be cut off when Yuki slams a hand over her mouth.
"Sorry, Kimura-san. We only overstepped because we were worried." Yuki smiles. "Just be careful, alright?"
"Mm." Ai vocalizes with a small smile, her own way of beaming at her friends, and she pats Chiyo's head before she walks up to Atsumu. They're about to open the door, only for someone on the other side to beat them to it—with a loud slam!—revealing a girl their age, disheveled and alarmed.
Ai couldn't help the sneaky suspicion that she knew this girl, but couldn't quite identify how.
Light brown strands of hair, similar in shade to milk chocolate, were swept across most parts of her face. Like she'd been victimized by a nasty windstorm. For a moment, Ai almost dismissed the sense of familiarity...but when a hand gripped the doorframe, Ai saw those vibrantly colored acrylic nails, and her gaze drifted to the girl's lips, which were the same shade of pink.
"Hasegawa? Are you alright?" Ai asks.
She'd assumed Karen's incredibly messy appearance was due to being ill, or possibly, she'd even been injured—but oh, little did Ai know.
"Me?!" Karen blows her locks out of her face—or she tries, for it kept falling back on her sticky and damp forehead. With a closed-mouth scream, Karen calmly(?) brushes her hair back, revealing bloodshot eyes and red cheeks. "Oh, I am perfectly fine, Kimura Ai—the likes of you shouldn't be worrying about me."
"...The likes of her?" Atsumu cuts in with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms, staring at Karen with something territorial in the brown of his eyes.
Karen blinked up at him, frozen in her spot when she realized two things. First and foremost, Karen was so...worried... about Ai's well-being that she hadn't even registered Atsumu's (let alone Chiyo, Yuki, and Aiko) presence. Secondly, she realized she was worried for someone other than herself.
That...Wasn't a thing.
Since confronting Ai, Karen had been spending her days woefully distracted, trying to convince herself of heterosexuality. However, that didn't stop her from acting before thinking when the fan club was talking about what Akane did. Seemingly, the fan club's rumor mill picked up gossip quickly—especially when it came to higher-up members.
She hadn't even stuck around to listen to the full story, but it didn't stop the words from repeating inside Karen's mind as she stomped around the school, figuring out what the hell happened.
"I heard from Fumiko that that psychopath Akane was planning on going after Kimura today. I can't believe she disobeyed your orders—eh, Karen, where are ya going?"
Karen cleared her throat, pretending Atsumu wasn't intimidating her as much as he was. Glancing from him to Ai, her gaze lingered on Ai's bottom lip.
"How'd that happen?" She asks, breathing a sigh of relief.
She'd been subtle about it, but Karen had been checking Ai all over for any other injuries, eying her body up and down. She was surprised (and a bit impressed) that Ai only had a minor injury, especially with an attacker like Akane who was known for her untamed fits of aggression.
"Didn't you send her?" Ai responds with a question of her own.
"I would never!" Karen scoffs, bewildered and surprisingly upset that Ai thought such a way about her. Was she truly that bad? "As soon as I heard about it, I came looking for you!"
Truthfully, Ai didn't believe Karen was behind Akane's confrontation. She just liked the idea of riling her up—especially considering Karen was preventing her and Atsumu from getting to practice.
"Kimura, will ya do me a favor?" Atsumu asks. "Can ya go to the gym first and explain why we were late? I think it'd go over more smoothly if it were you." With another nod, Ai departs, sliding past Karen, who doesn't miss how softly Atsumu gazes at the manager...
Which was something Karen had never seen before.
Atsumu was not the type of guy who'd soften up for a girl, but that was why he was such an important bias for the fan club. Everyone that loved Atsumu, loved him exactly the way he was. When he'd lose his temper and scream at them for messing up his concentration to the way he always scowled at everyone and called them pigs. That was what made him Miya Atsumu.
'What the hell happened between them to make Atsumu like this?'
As soon as Ai was gone, any softness in Atsumu's expression disappeared. Karen expected it, as shocked as she still was, but what she wasn't prepared for was the dark and menacing aura surrounding the star setter. He takes a few steps toward her, scaring Karen enough to back into the hallway, but that doesn't stop him. It's not until Karen's back hits the wall that Atsumu stops as well, but with a combative speed, his hand hits the wall just beside her head.
"I don't think you'd be as stupid to do it, and it looked like that girl was actin' alone, but..."
'But?'
"If you were behind what happened today, and I find out... You'll regret it. That girl is a part of our team now, you understand me? I'm sick n' fuckin' tired of hearing you fangirls comin' after her."
And with that, Atsumu releases Karen where he has her pinned, and proceeds to stomp down the hallway. A smirk graces his lips as he realizes how good it felt to stick up for Ai, to threaten someone for her sake, even if his words and actions stunned the hell out of him.
Ah, well, can't take it back, can he?
Ai's a part of the team for good, especially now that Atsumu finally approves.
.
.
.
Omake
"Well, slap my ass and call me Sally!" Aiko barks with laughter.
She, Yuki, and Chiyo were walking to the front of Inarizaki High now. For several minutes, each of them had been silent after watching such a beautifully mesmerizing scene. Who'd have known, huh? Miya Atsumu and their adorably expressionless Kimura.
"I know, huh?" Chiyo giggles.
"I don't know about you guys, but I've never been more pleased to be a background character than I am now." Yuki comments, and all three girls start giggling, deciding that Ai and Atsumu would, in fact, be very cute together.