"Takigawa-san, could you hand these to the volleyball club?"
It all started out as a simple request from Takeda-sensei.
"Oh, I don't mind sensei. I'll give it to them."
The petite, brown-haired girl accepted the bunch of papers with both hands, careful not to get it creased or worn out. Her brown eyes blinked uneasily behind the frame of her glasses as the volleyball club adviser, Takeda Ittetsu, smiled at her gratefully.
"Thank you! You're a life saver! Just hand those over to Coach Ukai, then you can go home." He breathes out in relief, returning back to the piles of papers yet to be graded on his table. Takigawa Kumiko only nodded meekly, shouldering her bag and making her way to the gym.
From afar, she could hear the sounds of volleyball shoes squeaking against the gym floor, the occasional bounce of the ball against the wall, and amongst it, a flurry of curse words came as well.
"It sure is a noisy bunch…" She muses as she stepped over the stairs and slid the gym doors open. Her eyes met a rowdy group of teenage males, all in volleyball practice gear, exchanging tosses and receives over the net.
"Oi, Hinata! Don't just stand there, you dumbass!"
Her eyes caught sight of the familiar tall figure of a black-haired boy, yelling at a shorter orange-haired boy as he failed to receive the toss sent to him by the other group on the other side. Her brain racked as she tried to identify him. Wasn't he in my class? If I recall correctly, his name was Kagurama? No, Kageyama? That's it, Kageyama—
"The ball's going out of bounds!"
Kumiko, immediately snapping out of her train of thought, immediately noticed the stray ball going out of the court, and judging by its direction, it's going towards—
"Get out of the way, you idiot!"
*baaam!*
She heard Kageyama's yells momentarily, then pain, and then everything turned black.