"I'm gonna go buy my books for this year." Y/N says as she puts her shoes on at the front of the house.
"Come home soon." Her mother calls after her as she swiftly leaves, making her way down the street as she glances around, alert. She wouldn't put it past the immature boys to try jump scare her on the street.
After a few minutes of walking, Y/N makes it to the nearby park that they had all agreed to meet at, only to find that they are nowhere in sight.
'Ah, they're totally trying to jump scare me.' Y/N internally deadpans as she slowly makes her way to a bench and puts her bag down.
Sensing movement behind her, Y/N quickly ducks down as a volleyball flies over her head, turning around to sees Osamu quickly run behind a tree that totally does a good job at hiding his body.
Groaning, Y/N's just about to tell him off before she sees Atsumu start Naruto-running towards her from the corner of her eye.
"AHHH!!!" Atsumu yells as he charges towards her. Rolling her eyes, Y/N grabs the strap of her bag as she swings it around, aiming for his head. Unfortunately for her, Atsumu has athletic reflexes and promptly dodges her attack.
Just as he's about to tackle her, Osamu runs up from the side and tackles Atsumu to the ground.
"Ackguh-!" Atsumu winces as he skids on the grass, groaning from the pain of Osamu's attack. "'Samu! Why'dja attack me like that??"
"I was protectin' N/N." Osamu says seriously as he quickly gets off the floor and pats down his pants.
"Didn'tcha just throw a volleyball at me?" Y/N deadpans as Osamu avoids eye contact.
"I would do no such thing."
"He totally did N/N!" Atsumu accuses as he quickly jumps up, pointing at Osamu. "He tried to attack ya!"
"Throwing a volleyball and tackling are two completely different things, Atsumu." Y/N facepalms as she sighs. "I could have died."
"Exactly, 'Tsumu." Osamu nods along. "I had to protect our precious manager from a monster... Even though that monster is my own brother..."
"Am I watching a live action drama?" Suna asks as he approaches them with Ginjima. "I have to say though, the male leads look kind of lame."
"HUH?!"
"Why are we already fightin'...?" Ginjima sighs tiredly as his shoulders slump. "We're gonna be third years next week... And nothing's changed..."
"Are things meant to change?" Y/N asks in disinterest as she shrugs. "We're just gonna be a year older, that's it. Though I guess we hafta be a bit more responsible now that we're the senpais..."
"Yes! Responsible!" Ginjima exclaims.
"We're gonna be the senpais, huh?" Atsumu repeats as he strokes his chin in thought. "I wonder what kinda first years we're gonna get..."
"Tall and good since we're pretty short and we need good players." Suna says. "But not too good because I want to be on the court as well."
"Aww didja hear that? He wants to be on the court! Rintarou's growin' up!" Y/N teases as Suna rolls his eyes.
"Whatever."
"Can we eat yet?" Osamu asks boredly. "I had to wrestle a monster so I'm hungry now."
"'Samu!" Atsumu whines as they start dragging him towards their intended location.
"Can we take the bus this time? I don't want to walk." Suna mumbles as Y/N rolls her eyes.
"Aren't you an athlete?"
"I am just a tired child."
"And I'm tired... of you." Y/N deadpans as Suna gasps and clutches his heart, stumbling back as he grabs onto Osamu's shoulder as if he was pained.
"I... can't go on... she's tired of me..." Suna wheezes out as they all sigh at his dramatics.
"I should've just gone to the restaurant first." Ginjima deadpans. "I'd prefer waitin' for all of you to arrive rather than havin' to deal with you."
"Oh we're gonna have sushi like last year?" Atsumu asks excitedly as his eyes sparkle. "Yess!! Fatty tuna!!"
"Do you not feed him at home or somethin'...?" Y/N asks as she whispers to Osamu.
"As if I'd let him go hungry." Osamu deadpans. "He's just a child."
"Aren't you-"
"Alright I'm bannin' all of you from talkin' until we get to the restaurant!" Ginjima groans as they all promptly shut up, avoiding eye contact as they look around.
Ginjima is able to enjoy exactly 4 seconds of silence.
"Wait, why are we listening to Gin?" Suna asks.
"Yeah! I'm gonna talk all I want!" Atsumu declares as Ginjima almost collapses to the floor in defeat.
"School hasn't even started and I've had enough of ya!"
Eating together at the restaurant, the five students converse light-heartedly as they enjoy each other's company and make predictions for the new school year. These predictions quickly turn to bets and heated arguments, but Ginjima somehow manages to calm everyone down before they start attacking each other.
Every now and then, Atsumu steals the food off of Osamu and Ginjima's plates as Y/N and Suna decide to ignore his rudeness, deciding that pretending nothing happened is self care.
After a while, Y/N checks her phone for the time before beginning to pack up her things.
"Ah sorry guys, I need to go home now, you know how my parents are." She apologises as Atsumu crosses his arms and glares at her.
"Nuh-uh! Yer not pullin' this off again!"
"Whaddya talkin' about?" Y/N deadpans as she stares at him, standing up and crossing her arms.
"You left early last year and didn't pay!" Atsumu groans as he points at her. "I'm not lettin' ya get away with that this time!"
Y/N stares at Atsumu for an uncomfortable amount of time as he starts to sweat. Pulling her eyes away, Y/N's eyes dart around the restaurant for an escape route before staring directly at an open window a little behind Atsumu.
Noticing her line of sight, Atsumu quickly jumps up and guards the window. "Aha! Yer not gettin'-"
Y/N quickly grabs her bag and runs out the door before Atsumu even notices, leaving him dumbfounded as he blinks in surprise.
"Huh?"
"Didja think she was gonna jump out the window or somethin'?" Osamu deadpans.
"B-But she was lookin' right at it!" Atsumu groans as he sits back down, slamming his head into the table. "She tricked me!"
"Isn't it a setter tactic to glance around and distract the blockers? She just pulled a setter's tactic on you." Suna mumbles boredly as he quickly gathers his things. "Anyway, I need to get home too so I'll see you three later."
"Later."
The remaining three sit in silence for a few moments.
"Suna totally just escaped didn't he." Osamu sighs.
Ginjima slams his head into the table as Atsumu resists the urge to scream.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Y/N sluggishly gets ready for her first day of third year, sleep deprived but somehow functioning. Once she's ready to go, she promptly leaves the house to get to her bus stop, needing to be early on her first day.
Letting out a sigh, Y/N tugs her scarf as she smiles slightly. She doesn't have a problem with the weather, but Kita's scarf provides it's own sense of comfort, just as Kita did when he was still in school.
As her bus pulls up at her stop, Y/N half expects someone to call her name, being so used to it. She shouldn't have been taken aback when she was greeted with silence.
She misses it a little, Akagi smiling at her from his seat on the bus, beckoning her over to sit with him, the light-hearted chatting. She'll just have to get use to his absence.
Walking over to the gymnasium alone, Y/N smiles slightly as she sees the twins already there.
"Mornin' N/N!" Atsumu calls as he smiles.
"Mornin'." Osamu mumbles after him.
"Mornin'." Y/N chuckles as she shakes her head. "Ready for our final year of high school?"
"I was ready to graduate before I even got here." Suna mumbles from behind her as he enters the club room. "Morning guys."
"Wow, yer not late." Y/N comments as he rolls his eyes.
"Am I ever late?" He asks boredly as Y/N shrugs.
"Well-"
"Don't answer that." Suna deadpans as she holds her hands up in mock surrender.
"Alrighty alrighty~ I'm gonna need to check over our equipment now. Later guys." Y/N calls as they wave her off.
Y/N thoroughly checks over the equipment in the storage room, taking note of anything that needs to be replaced. Once everything is checked over, she takes out her old club book from the previous school year, it's filled with their stat sheets and various notes. It's the same routine she did the previous year.
"L/N-chan! Mornin'!" Kagawa cheers as she approaches Y/N.
"Mornin' Kagawa-chan." Y/N answers as she smiles politely. "Didja have a good holiday?"
"Would have been better if it was longer, but yes I did." Kagawa chuckles. "How was yer holiday?"
"The concept of holidays doesn't exist at my house." Y/N sighs. "But oh well~ that is life I suppose."
"Mornin' Kagawa-senpai! L/N-senpai!" Inoue calls as she enters the room, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry, am I late?"
"Nope, not at all. So nice to see ya again, Chika-chan!" Kagawa smiles cheerfully as she hugs her quickly. "You ready for another year of fun?"
"Haha... fun..."
"It's not too late to escape, y'know?" Y/N chuckles as they make their way over to the coaches. "It's too late for me to escape, but you can probs get away easily."
Inoue shakes her head as she grins. "I like it here though!"
Y/N blinks in surprise as she smiles slightly. "I do too."
The current club members gather around the coaches as they listen to what they have to say.
"Welcome back to another year! Looks like most of us stayed~" Coach Kurosu chuckles. "First years will be joinin' this week, there are a few that caught my attention, and one that I recruited from his middle school, so I think we have a promisin' line up. Remember to be nice and don't cause trouble, lookin' at you Atsumu."
Atsumu flinches as he avoids eye contact, pretending as if he has no idea what Coach Kurosu's talking about.
"We're gonna have tryout's and we'll be givin' out the uniforms at the end of next week once we're all done with that and have our starting line up. Interhigh's just 'round the corner as usual, so let's all work hard!"
"Right!"
"Alright, now let's go over the other stuff..."
The coaches continue discussing the details and changes in the club as the members listen diligently and pipe up every now and then. Once they finish going over everything, they're all dismissed so they can prepare for the opening ceremony.
"Alrighty, let's go." Y/N sighs as she stretches.
"Let's officially become third years."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Waving goodbye to Kagawa as they go their separate ways, Y/N goes outside to the picnic table that she and the now-third year boys usually frequent at lunchtime, sitting down and relaxing as the other four come.
"School sucks!" Atsumu declares as he sits down, getting ignored.
"How was yer first few classes, Y/N?" Ginjima asks as he also sits down.
"Ehh it was okay." Y/N shrugs. "It's not much different from last year to be honest, so everything's all good~"
"Yeah, I kind of wasn't paying attention to anything though." Suna shrugs boredly. "Though I do want to know who coach recruited."
"Ohh that's true, he recruited ya didn't he, Suna?" Atsumu asks excitedly. "He recruited Kita-san as well! So whoever he got must be really good."
"Didn't he recruit you twins and Aran?" Ginjima asks as Osamu shakes his head.
"Nah, we were already part of the Inarizaki group so he didn't need to recruit us, we were already gonna go to Inarizaki anyways." Osamu shrugs. "But Coach is usually on the lookout for exceptional middle school volleyball players, that's how he found Kita and Suna."
"Being able to recruit exceptional players is honestly an amazing skill... He could make so much money as a scout for the pro teams." Y/N mutters as she thinks. "But I guess it's not that stable of a career choice in comparison to coaching so oh well~"
"He said he recruited one though, right? Dammit I really wanna know who it is." Atsumu groans.
"Guess we'll find out this week." Y/N shrugs. "There'll probs be a few manager applications but we already got all spots full, so at least I don't hafta review and pick a few."
"You still gotta reject them though." Osamu mutters. "Ah, but I think yer already used to that."
"What." Y/N deadpans.
"Intentional heartbreaker." Suna states as he points at her.
"No I'm not." Y/N rolls her eyes. "No one even likes me anyway."
"Liar!" Suna accuses as he scowls. "What about your 'Y/N Fanclub', huh?? Are they nothing to you? Do they not exist?"
"Wait, I have a fanclub? For what?"
"I don't know, for existing?" Suna shrugs. "Doesn't matter. Atsumu has a fanclub as well, and I have no idea how that formed either."
"Hah?? It's obviously coz of my setter skills." Atsumu scoffs as he rolls his eyes.
"Yeah... setter skills..." Ginjima mutters as he sighs. "You handsome guys will never understand my struggles..."
"Oi, you've got yer own fanclub too." Y/N deadpans. "So don't go thinkin' yer not handsome or anything."
"Wait, I do?"
"Who do you think's been screamin' yer name at our matches??"
"I thought that was my mum and sisters!"
"Unintentional heartbreaker." Suna whispers as Ginjima facepalms.
"Stop that, Suna!"
"They tried to silence him because he told the truth..." Suna mutters ominously.
"They tried to silence him because he was annoying." Y/N deadpans as she sighs. "Anyway, let's play the silent game. I'm tired of hearin' all yer voices."
"Deal."
"Alright."
"Wait, I hate this game." Atsumu groans as Osamu nods along.
"You forfeiting already? You wanna lose?" Y/N asks as Atsumu's competitiveness skyrockets. Shaking his head, Atsumu mimes zipping his lips as he sits there quietly.
After a few moments, Suna turns to Y/N.
"So like, I don't really care about losing, but the twins would hate to lose to each other." Suna smirks. "Let's see how long it takes for them to break."
"Alright." Y/N smirks in response as Ginjima sighs.
"I'm surrounded by horrible people..."
For the rest of their lunch, Atsumu angrily tries to use hand gestures to communicate with the rest of the team, while Osamu sits in his seat and eats quietly. The whole scene was mildly concerning to the rest of the students that passed by their table, with the exception of a few first years.
Watching the Inarizaki third years have their lunch together, a certain first year can't help but notice their dynamic.
These are his senpais afterall, and he'll meet them on the court soon enough.
~~~~~
This chapter is so nostalgic omg XD They're third years now :')) They're growing up :'))
I'm so excited to write their third year~ Can't wait to show the lineup~ Can't wait to write what happens at Nationals :) I hope you enjoy what I have planned :D
Also... I'm saying this to seal my fate but...
...Would anyone be interested in an Iizuna x Reader fic with EJP Raijin focus...? Asking for no reason at all...
Anyways :D I hope you enjoyed the chapter although it's a little shorter than they usually are~ I think the length is ok though so ya =w= Thanks for reading! :D