Possible Spoilers!!!
If you haven't watched the Kuroko no Basket movie, "Last Game", take caution! Only a small part of the plot is mentioned for now. (The actual chapters about the movie start next week!)
Also, I hope you've all had the chance to watch the third and fourth seasons of Haikyuu, because there'll be a few people making guest appearances!
You've been warned!
***
Author's Note:
I was so caught up with writing about the movie that I forgot about the birthdays...😭
I'll write them as soon as I can! (Especially since I know Aone and Ushijima were readers' favorites. I'll try to think of something for Narita, too.)
(It's never too late to tell me who you want to read more of!)
I have no idea when it'll be, but I'll come back to them!
***
Coach Ukai opened it up to free practice in the afternoon so the guys could work on their skills individually. There were less than two months left until the qualifiers at the end of October, and he wanted each person to level up in time for it. Nishinoya and Hinata were hyped up, and they started with serve training and worked hard to improve their abilities.
As Yachi went to wash the red jerseys, Kageyama wanted to spy on a certain team. It wasn't like watching Seijoh would instantly make him a better player, and there was an unspoken rule to only record official matches. But, he had to see. The setter took a bus to Aoba Johsai High School after discarding his poor disguise.
Ai had asked Kageyama, after handing Daichi a water bottle, if he wanted her to go with him, but the first-year had said that he would be alright going by himself.
So, she stayed in the gymnasium to help the guys with personal practices. She didn't mind. Besides, Ai had a recording of a street basketball game that she was looking forward to watching.
Shouts of "One more!", "Nice serve!", and "Nice course!" echoed in the gymnasium as Ai finished her duties as quickly as possible. She couldn't make it in time for the live streaming that day, so a video of it would have to do. Kise had already texted her that morning to remind her of the game, telling her yet again that Kasamatsu would be playing.
Truthfully, she was very excited to watch the match. Ai had been wanting to see Higuchi-san play, and the rest of the graduates from her friends' schools were simply amazing. She wanted to see how they'd play in street basketball.
When Hinata asked Tsukishima if they could stop Ushijima as the middle blockers of the team, the tall blond got annoyed and left. It was one thing to think that they would naturally lose to a team with a two-meter-tall guy. But it was another for someone else to say that he can't win, especially if it was coming from the inexperienced and second shortest player on the team.
Ai went after him. "Kei," she called from the door of the gymnasium, staying on the stairs so as to not step outside with her indoor gym shoes on.
He paused on his way to the clubroom to change and leave school. "Yes?"
She stopped briefly — not wanting to say too much like the last time — before asking, "Is there anything you'd like me to do?"
He shrugged. "No. See you tomorrow, Ai-senpai." He nodded to her and continued to walk across the dusty courtyard.
She watched him go a little longer. He was still unsure of his stance with volleyball, so it was understandable that he wanted a change of scenery. Returning inside, Ai collected the used balls strewn about.
Sunset and nightfall came quickly, and Ai finally found the time to sit on the stage and watch the basketball game with Teams Strky and Jabberwock.
The latter was a famous street basketball team of players who were around the age of eighteen, although their looks could probably pass for older adults. Their skill level was said to match that of NBA players.
Imayoshi was the captain of Strky — its name a combination of Shūtoku, Tōō, Rakuzan, Kaijō, and Yōsen. Kasamatsu had been the creative one to come up with it. Three of the five members were also formerly captains of their high school teams.
Tanaka got hit in the head with a serve while he had his back turned to the net.
"Sorry!" Sugawara called from the other side.
Just then, Kageyama opened the metal doors and materialized back at their school gymnasium after dark, in awe of Oikawa's skills. Seijoh had been practicing with a college team with their alumni when he'd gone there to watch.
The ability to draw a hundred percent out of anyone... There was no guarantee anyone could do it, even after spending a long time training together. The captain setter worked with everyone well, bringing out the best of them regardless if they didn't like each other or had strange habits.
As Ushijima had said, Oikawa was a setter who would devote himself to any team. And no matter what team he was on, he could unlock that team's greatest potential. The current Seijoh was the masterpiece Oikawa had spent three years creating. However, Karasuno could overcome their last defeat. The freakish combo was motivated once more to defeat the Great King and Seijoh, as a team.
Everyone showed determined smiles around the gymnasium.
All except for Ai.
She'd been watching the recording of the infuriating exhibition match between teams Jabberwock and Strky. The real game had ended three hours ago, so there was nothing she could do now. Her options were limited because she was in Miyagi anyway.
Forty minutes.
Four quarters of ten agonizing minutes of ruthless taunting at the people she respected.
Her hands shook with fury as the game wore on. It frightened Hinata, Kageyama, and Yamaguchi, who saw her glaring death wishes at her screen. The mocking attitude of the conceited American players toward her friends — and Japanese basketball players in general — was plainly inexcusable.
Disappointing. People hadn't all been like that when she lived in Vermont. The United States was nice, and she'd heard wonderful stories from Himuro about Alex and his childhood in LA.
It was incredibly hard to watch, but she forced herself through it, tapping her pencil on her open notebook with irritation. She barely had anything to take notes of, except that Jabberwock took teasing in street basketball beyond acceptable boundaries.
When the game finally ended with 86-6, a score she never would have wanted to see, Ai simply couldn't sit still anymore.
Exhaling a sharp breath, she hopped off of the stage and walked toward the storage room.
The second-years had a bad feeling; they'd never seen her annoyed this much before.
Ennoshita knew he should catch up with her. "Hey, Ai? What's wrong?" he asked as they walked, trying to soothe things over. "Let's calm down for a second, okay?"
She didn't mean to glare at her dear friend, but the game had been too much.
'Monkeys have no right to play basketball,' Jabberwock's captain, Nash Gold Jr. had said. They even literally spit on and disrespected Kasamatsu, who had offered a handshake in admirable sportsmanship. Completely uncalled for.
"Let me through, Chikara."
"Woah, Ai's talking in English!" Nishinoya shouted.
"She's madder than I thought," Tanaka said aloud as the others cowered.
It took both Ennoshita and Narita to calm her down from overturning the basketball cart and throwing the orange leather balls in frustration; she might have been overly emotional this particular week. While her elegance was maintained throughout her anger, Narita trapped her arms and body with a hug from behind while Ennoshita talked sense back into her.
Daichi was open-mouthed and shocked to see her lash out so openly, while Asahi was shaken. Yachi and Kiyoko were speechless. Sugawara whispered to Tanaka if she was really okay, but even the second-year didn't know. Something like this had never happened before.
Yamaguchi stayed close to Hinata, since Tsukishima wasn't here to witness the scene. Kageyama only stared, baffled. Kinoshita stood next to Tanaka, but Nishinoya hovered over Ennoshita and Narita with his usual lightheartedness and high tension.
"Why don't you call him? Or one of your old friends?" Ennoshita suggested.
There was a short silence. She huffed a breath, hooking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'll be fine. You can let me go, Kazuhito."
He did, and they all stood around, waiting for her to say something.
"I'll be outside. I'm going to get some air." Ai went out the metal doors, entering the dim and quiet night.
After a moment, Nishinoya spoke up. "What was that about?"
"I don't know," Ennoshita replied.
"Ai can be as scary as Daichi sometimes..." Asahi murmured.
Some of the guys peeked into the grey notebook she'd left behind, but they couldn't understand her notes about basketball, and some parts were in English.
They decided to leave her alone for a bit, and she was back to her usual self by the time they ended practice to walk home together.
———
Tsukishima came back the next day asking Coach Ukai's advice on blocking the spikes of people who were taller and stronger than himself. It was a drastic change from his previous self where he expected to lose to those more powerful than him, thinking that it was only natural that he couldn't win against them.
The coach was overjoyed at the first-year's willingness. Ukai had been hoping the tallest member of their team would step up to increase Karasuno's blocking level. Otherwise, Narita or someone else might have become a starting player in Tsukishima's place sooner or later.
The most crucial component to blocking was timing, not necessarily height. Of course, how the blocker had their hands out and reading the course and trajectory of the ball was important, too, the coach explained. Although Ukai could say it in words, the former setter wasn't good enough to show an example.
Someone close to them who excelled at being a leader for blocks and had a keen sense for this, was Kuroo from Nekoma. He was a player with outstanding individual technique and a good example with it came to blocking.
"You might want to ask your manager about that. It looked like she's close to Nekoma's captain," Ukai half said, half grumbled. He squinted in the manager's direction and spoke in a low voice. "But, I'd be careful around her today if I were you. She almost went berserk yesterday."
Tsukishima raised a brow. What did that mean? He made a shallow bow to the coach and excused himself to follow his advice.
It wasn't hard to locate his second-year manager since she stayed inside the gymnasium most of the time. The other managers left occasionally to wash the red number jerseys and other stuff he didn't really know.
Ai stood against the wall snacking on half of a big fuji apple. However, her eyes seemed to have somewhat of a faraway look, like she was watching and not watching the spike training with Setter Sugawara at the same time. At her feet, she had a rectangular utility bag of towels, a couple of purple notebooks, and a pencil.
She turned to him as he got closer. "Would you like a towel, Kei?"
"No, I'm alright."
She said nothing more and returned to staring at the guys practice.
Tsukishima thought she'd have more to say, like 'what was he going to practice?' or 'did he need something from Coach Ukai?' Instead, a silence settled between them, with only the echoes of volleyball sounds and the crunch of her apple to hear.
Was she ignoring him? Tsukishima didn't think he'd done anything to make her angry, but then he remembered what the coach had warned him. He wondered what it could be.
"Would you like one, Kei?"
She'd felt him staring. He didn't mean to. But, maybe there was something different about her today than yesterday.
"Apples have citric acid and polyphenol, so they're good for exhaustion and fatigue." She bit into its red flesh and chewed absentmindedly. The juicy fruit was very nourishing on another sunny day of club practice. She didn't analyze how well Sugawara and his spikers were doing for the synchronized attack. She looked dazed.
"I know it isn't proper to bite into an apple instead of cutting it into smaller pieces." Finally, she glanced at him with a small smile. "Spare me this," she joked.
Tsukishima's gaze strayed to the floor. "It's not that. Ukai-san said that I should ask you about Kuroo-san."
"What about him?" She finished her half-apple and wrapped the core in some paper napkins to throw away later. She picked up the notebooks, both of them for her new research project with the other two managers, and started to flip through them.
"Why did you start volleyball, Ai-senpai? Were you running away from basketball?"
A deep sigh escaped her lungs before she knew it. "It didn't start that way." She stopped what she was doing and leaned her back against the wall. "At first, the only reason I even considered a different sport was because the boys' basketball team here wasn't as entertaining as I wanted."
The blond nodded. After two years of managing those guys he'd met at the barbecue, it was no surprise that she didn't spare a second glance at their club — no offense to Karasuno's basketball team.
"But, over time... yes, Kei. I was. ...Running away." As she admitted this, her eyes began to get misty.
Tsukishima chewed the inside of his cheek. "Was there a moment where you 'got into' being a manager?"
"Maybe. I don't know. It was all of the memories combined, I suppose."
"Did you start volleyball because of your experiences with basketball? Because you already knew how fun it is to be a manager?"
"Is that what your brother said?"
The reserved first-year looked surprised that she knew he had a sibling.
She met his eyes. "Saeko-san said that she knew a Tsukishima when she was in high school. I thought it might have been your brother."
"Yeah. He's an alumnus."
"It sounds nice to have an older brother." She smiled and shared friendlily, "I'm an only child."
He nodded. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd expected her to have younger siblings.
"When I came to high school, I was looking around in the gymnasiums to see what they had. Then, Kiyoko-senpai found me, just like Satsuki did for me at Teikō. I suppose I just took on being this club's second manager, even though it was a different sport. So, it wasn't planned."
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back just a little. "If you have a dream that you can work hard for day and night, don't be afraid of burning out." She opened them and saw the high ceiling of the gymnasium instead of the stars far beyond it.
"I liked being a manager. That's it. You could say that I thought it was fun. But, I can say this for certain. I'm glad I joined this club. Each of the others changed after losing to Kuroko-kun's team. Being a part of this team was my version of a revelation." She turned to him. "Does that answer your question?"
Her tall junior nodded. "Yes."
"Why did you ask me?"
Tsukishima hesitated, because he wasn't the type to talk about this stuff a lot. But, since she'd answered his questions, he could answer hers, too.
"Bokuto-san asked me if I thought volleyball was fun. He said that he had a moment in his life when he got 'hooked' on volleyball. But, I guess it depends on the person."
"You're not wrong for thinking that volleyball, that all of this," she motioned her hand at the wide gymnasium and everything in it, "is just a club."
Ai angled her head sideways inquisitively. "Do you like volleyball?"
Tsukishima didn't have an immediate reply.
"At least three of my six basketball friends grappled with the concept of actually liking the sport that they played. Atsu-kun was one of them. He only played because of his blessed tall height and because he won the games. Quite easily, too. He and Tatsuya and everyone in Yōsen is a high defense team that pulled off multiple zero games in the national tournament."
His eyes widened for only a second. Forty minutes without the opponent team scoring a single shot. And, at the National level. He was impressed, and Tsukishima didn't doubt that the two-meter guy who had visited their Second Gymnasium could do it.
"He would get annoyed whenever someone asked him if he liked playing. But at the end of his match with Kuroko-kun, he cried." She remembered watching a recording of the game. "He cried because he felt sad and frustrated. He didn't know why the tears welled up in his eyes, but they did. His heart felt something, and he cried." She made a pained smile and shrugged.
"It just sucks to lose."
As soon as she said that, the memory of watching the exhibition match yesterday flared inside of her. However, she tempered her anger and tried to shake it off.
"Seijuro didn't care about liking the sport either. Do you have to like the sport to win the games? Is that feeling really necessary for victory? But once he switched, it didn't matter either way."
Switched? Tsukishima wondered. Did she mean from middle school to high school?
"All that mattered was that he was victorious in everything that he did. Nothing else." She bit her bottom lip softly, and then released it from between her teeth.
"When I look at people like Ryū or Shōyō or Tobio, it makes me think. Hard workers who do what they like are unstoppable." She stepped away from the wall and faced him fully, looking up at his face. "So, I'll ask you again, but you don't have to put it in words. Nor do you have to know the answer yet. You can spend the rest of your life searching for it, or disregard it completely and do other things you do like.
Do you like volleyball?"
Ai simply smiled and walked away to fill water bottles. She trusted Tsukishima to follow her if he still needed to talk.
Takeda-sensei made a call to Coach Nekomata about arranging another training camp with the schools in the Kantō region, and Ai sent a quick text to Kuroo.
.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, the Generation of Miracles gathered in a gymnasium.
Kuroko had sent out an email to everyone, inviting each of them to gather once again. Kagetora, Riko, and Momoi were also there.
"I never thought we'd be playing on the same team again." Akashi smiled.
"Hey," Aomine grunted to Midorima.
"It's been a while," he ground out in return. His lucky item for today was a yellow tea kettle.
"This reunion's sooner than I expected. Right, Murasakibara-cchi?" Kise said rather brightly.
"Mhm..." The purple-haired giant agreed poutingly.
Akashi sighed, but with a smile. "Let's all forget about our rivalries from Interhigh for now."
"Yeah, don't you all want to show Ai-chan how happy you are to play together again?" Momoi chirped. "You want to, right, Dai-chan?" she pressured. The pink-haired manager learned from the best.
"Ngh... Fine." Aomine dropped his glare, but Momoi had a feeling that it was only because their Interhigh match ended with Tōō's win against Shūtoku.
He also averted his eyes at the mention of the other manager's name. The last time they'd met had ended with a bit of a confrontation. A little bitterness still lingered.
Midorima and Murasakibara begrudgingly calmed down as well.
"That's better." Momoi grinned and noticed Akashi looking at her with a knowing smirk.
The captain didn't need to say anything more.
Riko was surprised, eyes widened. Who knew that simply saying her name had so much power over the Generation of Miracles? For someone who wasn't present for the meeting, the empress sure had a lot of influence over the guys with diverse personalities. Seirin's coach made a mental note in case she ever needed to use that advantage.
Kuroko and Kagami joined the group, along with three backup players.
A one-time-only dream team.
Once they were all introduced to each other, Kise sighed. "Now, all we need is for Ai-cchi to come to manage us again."
Momoi chewed her lip, and her gaze cast downwards somberly. "Yeah..."
"Tsuki-chin has her own tournament, doesn't she?" Murasakibara asked.
"Karasuno won the preliminaries for Spring High School Volleyball last week," the data analyst informed the basketball players with a proud grin. "She's doing great with her school this year."
The small forward continued, "You're lucky you get to see her often, Murasakibara-cchi. Akita's close to Miyagi."
"Kyoto's even farther," Midorima pointed out, taking a careful glance at Akashi. It was rude for them to whine about not seeing her often when even her boyfriend wasn't able to see her. And they didn't see him complaining about it.
"Only if Muro-chin says we're going to visit."
"What's Tatsuya got to do with her?" Kagami questioned.
"He says it's better to go to Miyagi sometimes than have her travel to Akita all the time." Murasakibara shrugged. "I don't mind. I like the zunda mochi in Sendai. And the Kikufuku brand's zunda daifuku with whipped cream inside. They're good," he said, mouth beginning to water.
"It is a bit lonely without her, but it can't be helped. Akatsuki-san has her new team to think of," Kuroko said dejectedly.
"I'm sure Ai will find a way to contribute to this team somehow." Akashi smiled. His girlfriend was probably sneezing right about now.
"Has anyone told Akatsuki about us playing against Jabberwock yet?" Aomine spoke up.
"I haven't," the shadow said, and he glanced at their new coach.
However, Kagetora hadn't met her yet, so the man shook his head.
"I haven't yet either," Momoi admitted.
Kise glanced around at their faces. "So, she doesn't even know we've all gathered without her?"
"Hey! Are you talking about Ai-chan?" Takao jumped into the conversation. "You know, Shin-chan always checks the Gemini horoscope when he can. And, sorry to say, Kise-kun, but I think it's more for her than anyone."
"Takao," Midorima warned.
The blond laughed. "That's ok. I forgive you, Midorima-cchi!"
"I do not require your forgiveness, Kise."
"She must be good at it if she was a manager for the Generation of Miracles, right?" Riko asked Kuroko.
"Ai-chan's amazing. She's so talented," her best friend gushed.
"Yes. Akatsuki-san is an exceptional manager, but in a different way than Momoi-san," Kuroko explained.
"I wish she could come, too..." one of Teikō's former managers sighed.
Akashi quietly cleared his throat. "Momoi."
"Yeah, Akashi-kun?" she responded, her voice sorrowful.
"I have something to run by you. Meet me after practice," the captain requested.
"O-okay," she replied, a bit surprised. But seeing the small smile softening his face, she knew then that it had something to do with Ai. Why else would he have that gentle look in his eyes if not for his girlfriend? A grin came upon her profile as Momoi realized.
"What's gotten into you?" Aomine asked when she giggled.
"Nothing!" Momoi smiled.
.
"A revenge match against Jabberwock?" she repeated into her phone. Sitting on her bed at home, Ai took the call from her boyfriend that night.
"I'm happy to be the first to tell you," Akashi chuckled on the other end. "Momoi and everyone are already gathered here. I'm sure you'll get a message from her later. We begin training under Kagetora-san tomorrow at the Aida Sports Gym."
"I see. That must be fun," she said, a smile gracing her features.
"Will you be able to join us, Ai?"
"I'll see what I can do. We may be going to Tokyo for another training camp soon." She pressed her cell to her ear with her shoulder as she flipped through her planner. "I'll be there, I promise."
"Perfect. I've asked Momoi to send you the details, since I have a captain's meeting with the coach shortly."
"I'll text Satsuki, too," she said.
He paused for only as long as it took to smile. "I can't wait to see you," Akashi's gentle voice sounded.
Her heart swelled. "Me neither, Seijuro."
———
They were able to go back to Tokyo a couple more times after that, before their qualifiers. Arriving at Nekoma High School, Karasuno met with Fukurōdani's team as well. It was a rare chance to have so many practice games, so the guys would make the most out of it.
The moment they stepped inside, they were greeted by a familiar loud voice.
"Hey, Tsukki! Jump blocks for me! Hey, hey, hey!"
Bokuto waved his arms with Akaashi and Komi Haruki — their third-year libero — in the background. "Oh, Ai-chan! Welcome back to Tokyo!"
"Hello, Kōtarō-san, Komi-san, Keiji-kun." She bowed politely.
Even though they were close enough to omit formalities, it didn't change that they were a year older than her. The only exception was...
"Chii!" Kuroo walked over to her, arms wide open for a big hug. He lifted her off of the floor and gently spun them around once. "How've you been?"
"Kuro, you may put me down." She smiled at his reaction to seeing her again. Her feet touched the floor once more. "And, it hasn't been long since the last time I saw you."
He smirked and placed a hand on top of her head. "Can you blame me? Your boyfriend was so overprotective of you before."
"I won't say our friendship is lesser than mine with Seijuro, but he is important to me, too."
Ai wasn't very good at making interpersonal boundaries. She was often either too cold to people like in Teikō, or too affectionate such as with her volleyball teammates. She hugged people casually, as an extension of her American culture. Not having an example of acceptable skinship growing up also affected her. All in all, Ai's ways were a bit different from common standards.
"He went back to Kyoto when the Interhigh tournament for basketball ended, but he and the others are back here in Tokyo for a week."
"Oh, I see," Kuroo dragged out. "And, I hear your precious Karasuno did well in the first preliminaries."
"Yes," she smiled. "We were successful, even without the help of a blackbelly lantern shark."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Ask Shōyō if you'd like." A mischievous look overcame her expression as she made a proposal. "Kuro, if you teach Kei how to block well, I'll take up where I left off as Nekoma's manager."
Kuroo laughed. "I was hoping you'd do that for us without saying."
Truthfully, she would have, but Ai shook her head this time, as if disappointed at his presumption. "Magic always comes with a price."
"Fine, you got it," the middle blocker captain relented. They shook hands for the deal.
"Ai-senpai!" Lev called her over, and she met with him, Kenma, and Fukunaga.
Akaashi also greeted her with a casual hug and escorted her charmingly to the desk they'd prepared for her. "We carried it over from one of the classrooms. I hope it'll do."
"Thank you, Keiji-kun. You don't know how much this means. It's very thoughtful of you." She smiled and took a seat.
It made her writing tremendously easier. She watched and took notes of the live performance from her desk, like an eager student copying the blackboard in a classroom.
Since they still had a bit of time before practice started, Taketora and Lev invited Tsukishima to a three-on-three versus Kuroo, Bokuto, and Akaashi.
.
Nekoma's extra members stood at the scoreboard that had Shinzen and Karasuno written in white chalk. The score was 8-20 with the crows having a significant lead. The success rate of the quick attack was only about 70 percent, but the probability of scoring was something they had to polish through repetition.
She watched them when she could, and took care of the cats as promised.
In the next matchup, Fukurōdani played against Nekoma. Bokuto spiked while Lev and Kenma jumped to block. It went past the first-year's long arms, and Yaku missed the ball.
"Lev! Didn't I tell you not to spread your arms like a bonsai tree when blocking?! The ball's going between your arms!" Kuroo screamed from the warmup zone while the libero was on the court. "Your arms only need to be far enough apart to stop the ball!" he directed, with Shibayama and Inuoka standing on either side of the captain.
Tsukishima listened in, paying attention to Kuroo's lectures as Ai wrote the advice in her notebook.
———
They stayed for a few days, since the students had a little over a week before school started again.
On the second day, Ai went to the drug store to restock the first aid kits for the Karasuno and Nekoma teams. If she was going shopping either way, she might as well buy stuff for both teams.
Kiyoko and Yachi offered to go, since Nekoma would lose their only manager while she was out on the errand, but Ai was more familiar with the neighborhood. The cats could survive an hour without her.
Taking the bus, she arrived at a drugstore in a cozy part of town. The small store was full of merchandise, ranging from toothpaste to makeup to snacks to medicine.
Ai grabbed a plastic basket and walked down the aisles with a list in hand.
One roll of bandages for Karasuno and two for Nekoma. A pack of tissue boxes for Nekoma. Finger tape and some anti-inflammatory ointment for Karasuno.
As she was turning the corner to the wound-care section, she saw two guys already there.
One was wearing a scornful expression behind a white mask, crouching down to look at the little bottles lined on the lower shelves. The other stood back with a grey shopping basket like her, without a mask and looking happy. Both wore a plain yellow T-shirt and dark forest green shorts, telling her that they were in sports clubs at the same school somewhere.
The brune noticed her and smiled.
Ai nodded back. She scanned the labels for the antibiotics wordlessly.
"Hey, Kiyoomi-kun, did you decide yet?"
"No," the other guy grumbled.
"Come on, you don't need so many bottles of antiseptic solutions! Auntie only said to get shampoo and toothpaste."
He grunted at his clubmate. "You should get hand sanitizer too while we're here, Motoya. The school locker rooms are filthy."
"Not really, since you clean it often," he laughed.
The masked guy, "Kiyoomi", turned back to glare at the brune, but he faced the shelves once more.
His friend turned to her. "Sorry about this guy. He takes forever." He had a personable air about him.
"That's alright," Ai replied, but she knew she should return to her teams soon. She didn't want to keep the coaches waiting, and she wished to watch their practice matches as much as she could.
The name also sounded oddly familiar.
"Are you a student from around here?" Motoya glanced at the words "Karasuno High School" on her white shirt.
"I used to be. Just visiting for now," she said.
"I didn't think many people would come to this store unless they didn't know the neighborhood well." He smiled and saw her basket. "Either someone's hurt pretty badly, or you're a sports club manager," he joked friendlily.
She cracked a smile. "I'm happy to say it's the latter." As she looked at the products, the gears in her mind turned.
It couldn't be Sakusa Kiyoomi, could it? The national-level ace next to Ushijima? Fate was playing funny tricks on her, meeting a famous volleyball player in a tiny drugstore like this one. If she remembered correctly, Sakusa was a second-year, like her. Although she didn't know who the other person was off the top of her head, she guessed that they had a close relationship.
It was unexpected; they were nothing alike.
Finally, the wing spiker chose two containers of liquid and stood. "Let's go."
"Bye!" the brune friend grinned.
She waved back to her new acquaintance and carried on with the rest of her shopping.
***
Author's Note:
You'd think the cousins would use their first names, but Komori called him "Sakusa" in season 4. It makes their friendship that much cuter, though. ☺️
(Edit: Ok, so maybe they do use their first names...)
The next few chapters are going to be about the KnB movie, Last Game! Go watch it if you haven't already! I'll give you a week to do that 😉
(I'll also post an updating schedule on my profile if anyone's interested!)
Also, for the basketball Interhigh when the Generation of Miracles are second-years, I think Rakuzan won the tournament (with the three Uncrowned Kings still on the team), and by the looks of it, Kaijō won against Yōsen and Tōō won against Shūtoku. Maybe.
Please comment if you have different opinions or if you agree!
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Reference:
Zunda is a sweetened edamame paste. It's much like anko or red bean paste, and you eat it with mochi. Miyagi is famous for zunda desserts.
P.S. I tried the Kikufuku zunda daifuku with whipped cream inside (the one Gojō-sensei got in Jujutsu Kaisen), and it was really good! There were also versions with regular azuki red bean paste, and they tasted a little more conventional. I think the zunda flavor was a good regional special treat!
(There are matcha, zunda, heavy cream, and roasted tea flavors)
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Does Akashi live in Rakuzan's dorm or does he commute from his house?
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Timeline:
(Some of these I made up.)
- August 11: Spring High Volleyball Nationals Preliminaries
- August 13: Aone and Ushijima's birthdays
- August 17: Narita's birthday
- August 21: Team Strky vs Jabberwock
- August 24: Towada's birthday
- August 25-27: Second Nekoma Training camp
- August 28: Team Vorpal Swords vs Jabberwock
- August 29: Washio's birthday
- August 30: Sakunami's birthday
- August 31: Aomine's birthday
- September 2: End of summer vacation, chocolate shop encounter
- September 3: School starts again
- September 4: Yachi's birthday
- September 6: Moniwa's birthday
- September 20: Bokuto's birthday
- September 23: Mibuchi's birthday
- September 27: Tsukishima's birthday
- September 29: Fukunaga's birthday
- September 30: Konoha's birthday
- October 6-7: Third Nekoma (or Second Shinzen?) Training Camp
- October 10: Nishinoya's birthday
- October 16: Kenma's birthday
- October 25-27: Spring High Volleyball Nationals Qualifiers
Total Word Count: 5805