Chapter 1 – I'm Home!

Yuna's POV

As I stood in front of the house that had been my childhood home, I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me. Various memories of leaving early in the morning to go to school, or coming home late at night after hanging out with friends flashed through my mind, drilling the realization that I had finally arrived home into my head. Despite the 3 years that I had been gone, my house still looked exactly how it was before I left for Tokyo.

"Yuna?" My mother's voice pierced through my thoughts and I turned my head towards her. She was holding one of the many boxes that we had brought back with us from Tokyo. Seeing that she was fumbling with the box while trying to get her keys out, I went over and took the box from her.

"You should have opened the door before trying to carry this." I lightly scolded her. This was one of the reasons why I was glad that we had come back to Miyagi. Even though my mother could be super efficient and do amazing at her job when she needed to get things done, her inability to function properly in her daily life left me constantly worried for her wellbeing.

"Where's Dad, anyways? I thought he said he would be here when we got back." Due to his job obligations, my father had stayed in Miyagi during the time that my mom, my brother and I had temporarily moved to Tokyo. Since my mother's three-year relocation contract for her job had finished, I decided to come back to Miyagi with her. My older brother, however, was about to go into his last year of high school and was adamant about staying in Tokyo and bringing his volleyball team to victory.

"He said he had a few last minute things to sort out at the office. He should be here any minute though," Mom said, checking the time on her phone before walking and unlocking our front door. I followed her inside, still carrying the box, and took in the familiar view of our home.

"We're home!" Mom's voice rang out through the quiet house.

I put down the box, closed my eyes, and smiled.

We're home.


"I'm going to call Nii-chan to let him know we've arrived!" I called out to my parents who were currently downstairs sorting out the last few boxes. I heard my dad give a shout of acknowledgement and my mom remind me to tell my brother to remember to eat the food she had prepared before we had left. Since my brother would still be living in our Tokyo house, we had left many of our belongings behind. I sat down on my bed and took out my phone, scrolling through my contact list until I found the name that I was looking for.

Pressing call and putting my phone on speaker, I placed it on my table and began to sort through the suitcase of clothes that I brought with me. I'm going to have to go out and buy some more clothes. I had decided to leave half of my clothes at our Tokyo house for when we would go back to visit my brother, currently leaving me with a limited number of clothing choices.

"What's up?" My older brother's voice came through the speaker.

"Hey Onii-chan! Mom and I made it, just letting you know," I grabbed one of my shirts and put it on a clothes hanger before hanging it up in my closet.

"Oh? You guys didn't get pulled over by the police because of Mom's precarious driving?" He joked.

I rolled my eyes as I grabbed another shirt. "Yeah actually our car was towed and we had to walk all the way to Miyagi holding all our belongings," I replied sarcastically. I heard him chuckle over the phone and continued, "Anyways, Mom told me to remind you to eat that food she left in the fridge."

"Yeah okay. Tell her not to worry about me too much, I'm a third-year now, I can handle myself."

"No promises, she'll probably worry anyways," I laughed, shaking my head.

I heard another voice come on the other end and my brother's voice saying a few words in reply.

" 'Kay I gotta go, it's almost time for practice."

"Okay! Tell the guys I said hi!"

"Alright, talk to you later. Remember to make friends in school!"

"Bye!"

I plopped myself on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I hadn't really thought a lot about what my school life would be before coming here. Sure I had grown up here and had used to have many friends, but I had left in the middle of junior high to move to Tokyo. My friends had gone to different high schools and despite our efforts to keep in touch, I hadn't talked to a lot of them in a while. I was also entering this school in second year, when everyone would have probably made new groups of friends already. Great, I'm going to be the new kid in class again.

Well, I did have one friend that I had consistently kept in contact with while I was away. We were neighbours and he was my best friend with whom I had grown up with. I looked at the time, he should be in school right now, I thought. I decided that I would have to go over next door and confront him about his recent behaviour. These past few days he hadn't seemed like his usual cheerful self and I could tell that this wasn't one of those times where he was just frustrated at not being able to receive spikes during practice.

I sighed, Why were all the guys around me infatuated with the same sport? I mean, I had also played volleyball, being forced to practice with my brother when he got into it, but it seemed like everyone in my life was a volleyball fanatic. My thoughts shifted to yet another volleyball player. That person played volleyball too. He was a large part of the reason as to why I was not so hesitant about moving to Tokyo three years ago. He loved volleyball, he lived volleyball. That's why I had to –

The ringing of the doorbell broke me out of my thoughts.

I got up from my bed and headed downstairs, wondering who it could be. I reached for the doorknob and turned it, opening the door slowly.

A familiar head of spiky black hair came into view, coupled with a tuft of bright orange hair right in the center of it which definitely seemed like a questionable decision to me. Below it was a set of eyes that seemed to burn with determination along with a fierce smirk that I had learned to associated with that of my best friend.

"Noya-kun!?"


Author's Note:

Hello! Although this chapter might have seemed quite boring without any of the boys making an appearance (except at the end), I felt like this introductory chapter was quite needed in establishing who Yuna-chan is. There is a reason as to why I haven't mentioned her last name yet as I thought it would give away who her older brother is, hehe. As cruel as it may be, I would like to keep you guys guessing a big longer. Can you guess who is who?

Anyways, I've tried to make her background as logical as it may be but if you have any questions, feel free to ask! I wanted to keep a sense of vagueness about each of her relationships until more details are given, but I can understand that it might be confusing since I tend to think that people can just read my mind, haha.

I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and I hope to see you soon! :)