"Did you sleep well?" Tsukishima asks as we walk outside his house.
After dinner Tsukishima and I did homework in his room, then he kicked me out so he can shower. I ended up watching TV downstairs with Akiteru. When he came down, he gave me the necessities to shower and that was basically it. We didn't talk after that, even though I could hear him watching Jurassic Park until I fell asleep, which was at 1am.
I woke up to Tsukishima viciously shaking me, and I quite literally thought I was going to die.
"Yes." I respond, stifling a yawn. "Your bed is comfortable, thank you."
"Good, because the couch sucked." He grumbles, crossing his arms. I frown, my shoulders falling.
"I'm sorry."
"It's whatever." He shrugs. Just then, I hear an all-so-familiar voice.
"TSUKKI! TSUK- oh." Yamaguchi yells from behind us, then suddenly stops. We both turn around and I smile, waving at the boy.
"Good morning." Tsukishima and I end up saying in unison. He looks over at me and gags.
"Good morning Tsukki, Katsumi." He chuckles, walking up to us. "I didn't know you were walking with us today." He directs at me. Before I could respond, Tsukishima talks.
"She practically begged to spend the night." He says and I blink at him. I begged him?
"And you let her?" Yamaguchi's face goes red. "Isn't that inappropriate?" I think about the things he said yesterday and laugh, obviously it was a lie.
"Yeah, I begged on my knees until he said yes. Lucky me." I say sarcastically and turn around, walking away.
He didn't have to make up a lie like that, he honestly could have just said we decided to meet up in the morning or something. Yet, he wants to make me out to be some type of thirsty, teenage girl. This guy aggravates me like no other.
"Where are you going? Wait!" I hear Yamaguchi.
"Just leave her." Tsukishima's voice comes right after.
I make the walk from Tsukishima's house to school, alone. I don't look back to see how far Tsukishima or Yamaguchi are at all during the time I do, I just keep my gaze forward. A million things run through my head as I walk into my classroom, but everything stops once I see a small package on my desk. I stop in the doorway and frown.
Who the hell is leaving these things? It's nice...but I'm starting to get a bit worried. What if they turn into a stalker?
"Gaijin." I hear Tsukishima sing behind me. "Get out the way, how are other people supposed to get through the door? You're big enough to block everyone." I crane my neck around to see him, a taunting smirk plays on his lips.
His smirk slowly fades as he looks at my blank expression. I turn my head back around and silently walk to my seat.
"Is she okay?" Yamaguchi asks Tsukki as they walk to their seats.
"Why would I know? Why would I care?" Tsukishima's voice travels to my ears.
Asshole. He's an unappreciative asshole. I am so over it.
I mentally laugh at myself as I think about how yesterday he must have been messing around with me. He's probably been messing around with me this entire time. I look at the package on my desk and sigh, opening it up.
It's a big chocolate heart. Well, not huge, but maybe around 6 inches tall. I throw away the trash, sitting back down in my seat and crossing my arms. I look at the girl who sits next to me, she was in here before I was.
"Um, excuse me." I lean over to her. She looks over at me and smiles. "By any chance, do you know who's been leaving gifts on my desk?" Her eyes widen and a look of fear crosses her features before she puts on another smile.
"No, sorry." She shakes her head. "Secret admirer? Must be nice." She says before looking to the front of the class again, just as the teacher walks in.
The corners of my lips tug down, she obviously knows something. I purse my lips and shove the chocolate into my school bag, giving the teacher my undivided attention.
The day goes by slow, every second feels like an hour. At lunch, I ran from the classroom and sat amongst the students in the cafeteria. Hinata ended up spotting me and I stayed with him and Kageyama.
Those two...are seriously something else. I think every time I've ever seen them, Kageyama has yelled at Hinata- or hit him- and then they kissed almost right after. I quietly giggle to myself as I think that's kind of like Tsukishima and I. He gets angry for no reason, and then we end up kissing.
Then I mentally reprimand myself because
1) Tsukishima Kei is not my boyfriend and 2) I hate him right now.
The final bell rings and I quickly pack up my stuff from my seat. I was incredibly thankful today since our teacher didn't make us pair up for that stupid poem assignment.
"K-Katsumi! Hey..." I hear just as I'm about to head to the classroom door. I turn around and see Yamaguchi, looking as nervous as ever.
"Hi, Yamaguchi?" I say, though it comes out as a question. "Are you okay?" He takes a glance at Tsukishima as he walks out of the classroom.
He's not leaving with Yamaguchi?
"I-I was...um..I was wondering if you'd like to come watch the game today." He glances at the door again, but looks back at me quickly.
"Did Tsukishima put you up to this?" I narrow my eyes, crossing my arms. His eyes widen and heat rushes up from his neck to his cheeks.
"W-What? N-No! Of course not..." He trails off, then after a minute he mouths a 'yes'. I knew it.
"Sorry Yams, I won't be able to make it today. I have plans, but I can cheer you on next time." I play along, though I roll my eyes. By the way he keeps looking at the door, Tsukishima is probably waiting outside. I start to walk off but he quickly runs in front of me.
"Please!" He exclaims, eyes wide. "Please, come watch the game. It starts in about an hour, so you can hang out in the gym until then." He looks at me pleadingly. I frown, what the hell did Tsukishima say to this boy to make him this frantic.
I glance at the door, and then take Yamaguchi into a hug. I lean my head forward, next to his ear.
"Did he threaten you? I'll beat him up if he did." I whisper to him.
"No!" He says a little too quickly and I pull away from him, frowning. Then he mouths another 'yes' to me.
"Yamaguchi." Tsukishima walks into the classroom, his lips pulled down like they usually are when he's not smirking. "Let's go."
"Yes, Tsukki." Yamaguchi looks at me apologetically before running to his best friend's side.
Tsukishima stares at me and I walk out the door, having to push past him to exit. Just in time, Noya comes walking down the hall. Nishinoya, my savior.
"Nishinoya-Kun~" I yell, catching his attention. I quickly rush over to the boy and lace his fingers with mine.
I can feel Tsukishima's hard glare burning into the back of my head.
"K-Katsumi..." He stares, wide eyed at me.
"Let's go to the game together okay? I'll cheer for you. But let's run." I give him a pleading look, one that I hoped to convey the words 'help me'. But of course, it's Nishinoya and I'm a girl, so I can't expect much.
"O-Okay! I will do my best for you, my queen!" He grins and starts to run, pulling me with him.
It's not until we're halfway down the hall do I realize that he's not even looking forward as he's running, he's looking at me, a beaming grin on his face. I look forward again, a bit weirded out, and I see a cleaning cart right outside the bathrooms- and Nishinoya is going to run right into it.
"Nishinoya!" I yell, pulling his arm closer to me, practically yanking the boy closer to me so he doesn't run into it.
He loses his balance, and crashes into me, making us both fall over. I get scared about my big ass crushing this small boy so I wrap my arms around him with one hand, and try to break my fall with the other, landing on my side and rolling onto my back.
As we fall I swear to god I hear him whisper 'rolling thunder'.
A groan of pain leaves my lips, and the wind is knocked out of me. I let my arms fall to my sides as I try to catch my breath.
"Sumicchi" Nishinoya looks up at me, adding his cute little honorific to the end of my name. Are we 5 years old? "You saved me..." I look up at the boy. I can't even breathe, this is definitely not the time for whatever he's doing.
I hear the sound of a camera taking a photo, twice, and look up to see Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.
"Oh, and what's going on here?" Tsukishima teases. "Seeing you two fall was...the highlight of my life. But staying in that position doesn't look too appropriate for school." He smirks.
"Fuck you." I groan, my side aching.
"Tsukishima, we're having a moment here. Can you and Yamaguchi go?" Nishinoya pouts at the two.
"Huh?" I look up at him like he's crazy.
"Noya-San. Get off of her, now." Tsukishima says, his voice turning cold after Nishinoyas words.
"What? No. Today must be my lucky day!" Nishinoya grins.
Tsukishima hands his phone to his friend and stomps up to us, grabbing Nishinoya like a rag doll, and holding him up in the air like he's a baby.
Yamaguchi walks over to me and offers me a hand, helping me up. I take it, watching as Tsukishima lowers the boy to whisper something in his ear. Nishinoya immediately turns red and starts to mumble something.
He puts the libero down and they both laugh, though Tsukishima's sounds fake and Nishinoya's nervous.
"What do you think Tsukishima told him?" I ask quietly to Yamaguchi, and he shrugs.
"No idea."
"Now," Tsukishima turns around, his face looking like he's bored. "Are we all ready to go to the gym?"
"Yes, Tsukki." Yamaguchi nods.
"Good luck you guys, I think I'm going to head home now." I give Nishinoya and Yamaguchi a small smile, rubbing my side. I just know I'm going to have a bruise, I bruise so easily these days.
"I don't think you heard me correctly, Gaijin." He turns his gaze to me, he's smiling but his eyes are scary. "I said, are we all ready to go to the gym?"
"And I don't think you heard me, Blondie-Kun." I glare at him, taking slow steps until I'm right in front of him. "I'm. Going. Home." I say slowly so maybe it will register in his brain.
"I am sick and tired, I've had it up to here-" I raise my hand up as high as I can to make my point. "-with your stupid, annoying, aggravating attitude. I'm tired of your lies, and I'm tired of you. You cannot boss me around. You call me names, you make fun of the way I talk, you make fun of my height- even though you're way taller than me! You call me stupid, dumb, and a ton of other names! You make me feel so horrible about myself and I've been nothing but nice to you!" I let my arm fall down, fuming.
"Uh, Tsukki-"
"Shut up Yamaguchi." Tsukishima cuts his friend off. He opens his mouth to say something to me but I cut him off.
"I'm not even close to being finished yet." I laugh bitterly. "You know nothing about boundaries, you've hurt me more than once! You're cold, and bitter, and only pretend to be nice to me sometimes so I can get my hopes up. I feel like everything you've said to me has been a lie. You get me so high just to pull me down again- and I cannot stand it anymore. I hate you. I hate everything about you! I hate that I like you so much to the point where I put up with all of your bullshit!" I notice my fists are clenched, and my nails are digging into my palms. I relax my hands, taking a deep breath.
"Gai-" Tsukishima starts and I hold up my hand for him to stop. After all that, he's still going to continue with that nickname?
"I'm going home." I say, my voice curt. I turn on my heels and walk away, feeling like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders by saying how I feel.
Now he knows. It's his turn to make the next move.