"Keishin, you can't keep me locked in here forever," Azami complained to her brother as he stacked the shelves at the Sakanoshita store.
"I'm not," he replied. "You go to school. I can't help it if you don't have any friends."
"I have friends!" she complained, throwing a copy of that week's jump at him.
"Ow," he muttered.
"No offence to Mom, Dad, Grandma, or Grandpa," she said. "But I don't want to work at this hell hole for the rest of my life!"
"Be grateful," he said, tossing the magazine back. "You're getting paid for this ya know."
"Yeah I know," she said. "But I have to sit here and work this place while you get to go up to my high school and coach the boys volleyball team. My sport!"
"First of all, I started playing volleyball before you," he finished stacking the shelves. "Secondly, if you wanted to contribute you should've just asked. You could be a manager-"
"Or assisstant coach?" she asked, innocently, "You're obviously too old to do anything active so I could do it for you."
"I'm not too old, I'm only twenty six, jeez," he walked behind the counter. "Now get out of my seat."
Azami sighed, then looked up at him, "I will if you give me my headband back."
"Fine," he took the black headband out of his hair, letting his blonde hair fall into his face. He handed it to her and she took it, getting out of his seat.
"So when is your next practice?" she asked, twisting the headband through her fingers.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Depending on how well you do with the rest of the players, I might consider making you assisstant coach."
"Really?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.
"I said I might consider," he repeated. "That doesn't mean yes."
"It's still good enough for me!" she exclaimed.
-timeskip-
"Dai-kun, Ko-kun!" Azami ran through the hallways towards her two friends, Koushi Sugawara and Daichi Sawamura.
"Who Azami-san, slow down," Suga said, holding his hands out to stop her. "What is it?"
"So, I may have convinced my brother to let me try out to become the assisstant coach!" she said.
"Really?" Daichi asked. "How'd you do that?"
"I'm a very persuasive person, Dai-kun," she winked. "Wait aren't you two on the volleyball team?"
Suga nodded, "Yep, so is Asahi."
"Asa-kun!?!" she clapped multiple times, jumping up and down. "That makes me want to become assisstant coach even more!"
"I'm guessing that means you don't know that Kiyoko-san is a manager?" Daichi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What?" Azami asked. "She is!? That woman is a goddess, I must join the team!"
"Azami-san, calm down," Suga laughed. "People are staring at you."
"Let them stare! See if I care!" she smiled. "We should probably get to our classes though. College prep won't wait for us!"
-----
"I'm here!" Azami skipped into the gym, doing a cartwheel and landing right beside her brother. "Did you miss me Keishin?"
"You wish," he said, ruffling her hair. He motioned toward a man standing beside him with black hair and glasses. "This is the advisor, Ittetsu Takeda. Sensei, this is my little sister, Azami Ukai."
"It's nice to meet you Take-san," she said. "Again."
"Again?" her brother asked.
Azami nodded, "Take-san was the teacher who helped me with tutoring last year."
"It's nice to see you again, Ukai-san," Takeda said, giving her a warm smile.
"Now, Keishin, where are the children I want to meet them!" she rubbed her hands together.
"You look like a scheming witch," he chuckled.
Azami made her voice creaky sounding, "That's because I am deary. And I shall cast a wicked spell on you. Abracadabra, alla kazaam!-"
"Stop," her brother said. "You're probably going to summon a demon."
"WOAH!"
Azami turned around and was met with a bald guy and a short guy with bi-colored hair. The shorter guy was pointing at her. And the bald guy had his hands clasped together."A beautiful woman has graced the premises!" he turned to his shorter friend, "Noya-san! We have been blessed!"
They both ran up to her and got down on their knees, "Your majesty we are forever at your service!"
Azami glanced at her brother, "Is this normal?" He nodded. She turned back to the two boys in front of her.
"Tanaka, Noya, leave her alone," Suga said entering the gym.
"Hey Ko-kun!"she said waving at him. Daichi entered after him, "Hey Dai-kun!" She walked past the two boys that now had tears streaming down their faces, and made her way to the third years.
"Where's Asa-kun?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
"He's still in the club room," Daichi said. "But the rest of the team should be coming here in a few minutes."
"Yay!" she clasped her hands together. "I'm excited!"
"Maybe too excited," Suga chuckled.
"Oh come on, I can't be too excited," Azami said. "I'm just ready to meet everyone!"
"Well, lucky you, here they all are," Daichi said, nodding to the other side of the gym. Azami turned around a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She noticed eight more people enter the gym.
She ran over excitedly doing a cartwheel like she had before and landing in front of all of them. She saw the confused and flustered faces of the players and she smiled, "Hi! I'm Azami!"
She looked at each player. Black hair, brown eyes. Ashe brown hair, brown eyes. Shaved head, brown eyes. Black hair, blue eyes. Orange hair, orange eyes. Blonde hair, gold eyes. Green hair, green eyes. And then Asahi.
She smiled and made her way back to her brother who was shaking his head, "You've got some major problems."
"I don't have major problems," Azami said. "You aren't fun enough. You have major problems."
Her brother sighed as the team, still giving her confused looks, set up the net. After setting up Daichi introduced everyone to her.
"The second years are, Chikara Ennoshita, Ryunnosuke Tanaka, Yu Nishinoya, Hisashi Kinoshita and Kazuhito Narita."
"Okay so, Ryu-kun, Yu-kun, Chi-kun, Sashi-kun and Kazu-kun," she nodded. "If you guys don't mind me referring to you with your first names."
The players shook their heads and Daichi continued, "The first years are, Kei Tsukishima, Tadashi Yamaguchi, Tobio Kageyama, and Shouyou Hinata."
"Kei-kun, Dashi-kun, Tobio-kun and Sho-kun," she nodded once more. "And then Dai-kun, Ko-kun, and Asa-kun, and Kiyoko-san."
Daichi nodded.
"Wait," she turned around to face her brother, "And Take-san and Bratushka. Perfect." She turned back to face the team, "I'm Azami Ukai, you can all call me Azami. Yes I'm the sister to your coach. If he permits me to, I wish to become the asisstant coach to help you all improve and get better. Thank you for having me."
She bowed. It was eerily silent as Azami waited for a reply.
"WOAH! YOU HAVE A SISTER!?" Hinata screeched.
"Sadly, yes," her brother answered.
"Oh I'm totally feeling the love," Azami rolled her eyes and went to stand beside her brother. He ruffled her hair once more.
"Now get to practice!" Ukai yelled. The boys started practice. Receiving, setting, spiking. But Azami saw something that bothered her.
Sho-kun could not receive at all. He was terrible at it. The only time he could "receive" the ball was by getting hit in the face.
Azami turned to her brother, "Do you mind if I help someone?"
"That's what you're here for," he replied. Azami thanked him and walked over to Hinata. She pulled him from practice and took him to the side.
"Sho-kun I wanted to show you something," she told him. "So, I noticed you suck at receiving."
Hinata deflated.
"But, I'm going to help you," she told him. "Rule number one is obviously always try to get under the ball right?"
Hinata nodded.
"So, you have to really quickly try and decided where the ball will go so you can receive it perfectly," Azami continued. "Which for some people is really hard. But what helps, is looking at the trajectory of the ball. Think about how hard the player is hitting it, and where they are when they hit it."
"You also have to worry about your arms," she continued. "It is really hard to put your arms in the right position. But, even if you can't hold your hands together fast enough, you always have to have your forearms together. If you receive the ball from your wrists, it'll go all over the place. If you use your biceps, the ball won't have enough the bounce off of for a proper receive. Do you get it?"
Hinata nodded.
"And finally," she said. "You need to worry about your footing. When you receive a ball, you need to keep your feet a shoulders length apart. And, you should be perpetually bending. If your feet are too close together, when you bend you'll fall over. Same thing if your feet are to far spread apart."
"So you've got it?" she asked. Hinata nodded again.
"If he doesn't improve," Azami said, walking back to her brother. "It's not my fault."
"Well, if you see something you know you need fixing feel free to fix it," her brother replied. Azami nodded.
Ukai knew Azami was perceptive and well-rounded. She knew how to play, libero, setter, wing spiker, middle blocker and she was once even captain of her team.
After a few more minutes Azami walked back out onto the court. She walked up to Tobio Kageyama.
"Hey, so I just wanted to mention something about your backset," Azami said. All of the players sucked in their breaths. She wanted to criticize his setting.
"You're a great setter," she told him. "One of the best I've seen and trust me I've seen a lot of setters. It's just your form for your backset is so disgusting my eyes are watering."
Kageyama frowned. Not many people would go up to him and insult his sets like that.
"When you backset the ball," she said. "You lean too far back. Not only does that affect you, it affects your set."
She grabbed a ball from the cart. She held it over her head in a setting position, "When you backset, you don't want your feet to be stuck together. Have one foot behind as a sort of stilt. So if you bend back too far, you won't stumble and fall on the ground, thus messing up the set. Okay?"
He nodded and she tossed him the ball and walked back to her brother.
"Wow, you're better than I thought," her brother joked. Azami just smiled and continued watching the players.
After around fifteen minutes blocking practice started and Azami found another problem. She walked to the middle of the court and up to Tsukishima.
"Hey Kei-kun, not trying to sound harsh but, your blocking is terrible," she told him.
The tall blonde turned towards her, glaring down, "What would you know about blocking? You almost as short as Nishinoya-san."
Azami smiled, "My height doesn't bother me. I've gotten over it. Anyways, you'd be surprised at how much I know about blocking. Now do you want more help or not? I can let you suffer you know."
Tsukishima sighed but his gaze kept on her.
"Good," she said, smiling even wider. "Okay, so when you bend I notice that you don't bend down low enough."
She bent down, "You bend like this." She bent lower, "But you should be bending down this far."
"Also," she stopped bending. "When you block, you keep your hands down like a porch covering. Try to straighten your hands some. When a spiker comes to spike the ball, they're going to spike it straight over the net, not under the blockers hands."
She patted him on the shoulder and started walking back to her brother.
"AZAMI-SENPAI!"
Both Tanaka and Nishinoya ran up to her one their knees and bowing their heads, "PLEASE CRITICIZE US!"
Azami chuckled, patting their heads, "But you guys aren't doing terrible. Both of you are great players!"
She turned and walked back to her brother and when she reached him, she noticed the two boy laying on the floor like they were dead.
Azami chuckled and Suga and Daichi helped the two up and practice continued. Everything was normal. Only small problems which were easily fixable. She watched as they played and marveled at their skill. Soon the had spiking practice with Kageyama and Suga setting.
Kageyama set to Tanaka first. He did a clean straight over the net. Then he looked at her. She had him a thumbs up. He smiled and retreived his ball.
Next was Hinata's turn. Kageyama set the ball and like the flash, Hinata ran across the court, jumping into the air. It was like he was flying. He smacked the ball down to the court. Azami hadn't realized her mouth was hanging open until she saw Tsukishima snickering at her.
Azami closed her mouth and gave Hinata a thumbs up. He smiled at her and spiking practice continued.
-----
Practice was over. Her brother hadn't given her his verdict yet but he had said he'd open the store in case the players wanted to buy something.
Her brother drove her to the store. The two Ukai's walked to the store and Azami used her keys to unlock the door.
She walked behind the counter, putting her hair into a ponytail and holding out her hand to her brother, "Headband."
"No," he replied.
"Keishin, I payed for that with my own money," she told him, shoving her hand into his face. "Headband now."
He reluctantly took the headband out and gave it to her. "Besides, your hair looks better down. You look more sexy."
"I'm not trying to be sexy," he replied. "I don't want to be in any relationships."
"Well, when you do, call me," she said. "I can help you. I'm sure there are many eligible women, or men waiting out there for you."
"You're so weird," he told her. He headed to the back of the shop.
"I know," she replied, putting an apron on and tying around her waist. She sat down in the rolly chair and stuck her feet up on the counter. She grabbed that weeks jump and started reading.
After few minutes, the shop door dinged and the Karasuno team came in. Azami continued reading, "If you guys need to find anything. You can ask me. Keishin's sulking cause I stole my headband from him."
She started humming Daisy as the team searched the store. She bobbed her foot up and down to her homemade tune.
"Oh also, you can all have meat buns on me,"she said. The shop immediately exploded in a harmony of thanks. Azami smiled and continued reading.
After a few minutes her brother came out from the back of the store wearing another headband.
"Did you steal another one?" Azami asked, sitting up in the seat.
"It's not stealing, I'm borrowing it," He replied, lighting a cigarette and placing it into his mouth.
Azami then checked her phone, 6:40.
"Alright hurry up," she said. "We have to be home by seven! Get your things an get gone!"
The players quickly hurried and grabbed whatever it was they wanted and payed for it, thanking Azami as they left the shop.
After everyone had left, Azami stood up, taking her apron off and pulling her hair down.
"So?" she asked.
"I'll tell you at dinner," he told her, ruffling her hair once more.
Azami sighed, guess she'd have to wait till then.
Hey Hey Hey! I don't have that much to say and I realize I say that a lot but I have a lot of work to do for school rn so, plaz bear with my updating schedule. Please stay safe and healthy, I love you all!
-Author-chan