It was Monday and it would be a day after Hotaru had accidentally met Tsukishima on her way home. There would be club activities later on after classes too, so the fact that the two of them (along with the other club members)would spend the whole day together seemed a bit awkward for her.
Not that she minded it or something. It's just she saw an unusual side of him last Sunday after all and it made her wonder if he had eaten something bad or might have been feeling under the weather. He was usually sharp-tongued and indifferent, if not irritable, as far as she had observed during the past few days during classes and practices.
Hotaru slid the door open to her assigned classroom, finding the pair of fellow first-years already inside. She entered without hesitation and proceeded to where her seat was, which is beside her light-haired classmate.
"Good morning Tsukishima, Yamaguchi," she greeted the two of them, loud enough for them to hear her. She received a nod of acknowledgement from Tsukishima and a proper greeting from his best friend, Yamaguchi.
The latter was more friendly than the former, which made Hotaru feel a little bit better. Still, she wondered how in the world he could tolerate Tsukishima's apathetic personality sometimes.
"Are you guys feeling nervous for tomorrow's practice match against one of the prefecture's best 4?" She asked, genuinely curious because she remembered that the other duo, namely the oddball duo, was quite excited themselves.
However, it seemed like that was not the case for these two at all.
"Doesn't really matter. We'd probably even lose," Tsukishima quietly commented despite having his headphones on. Hotaru was quite surprised herself when he answered her question, because she figured that it was bound to get ignored by him.
Yamaguchi anxiously glanced at his friend because of his somewhat careless and pessimistic answer. Before he could intervene and try to reason to Hotaru about Tsukishima's response, he was cut off when he heard her soft chuckle resonating.
"Geez, how negative can you be, Tsukishima-kun? I know you're not one to easily get excited like Hinata and Kageyama but you could at least show a bit of enthusiasm?" It was not a question but more like words that were meant to give him a reason to try to lighten up a bit, in Hotaru's honest view.
It ended up making him grumble inaudibly to himself and making his raven-haired friend sigh wearily. Sometimes, Tsukishima is too much to handle, even for him.
"What about you, Yamaguchi?" Her head was tilted to the side quite a bit, a small smile lingering on her lips as she awaited the said boy's reply about her question earlier.
"I'm not really sure what to feel since I know I won't get the chance to play. But I do feel nervous for the senpais and the others." Hotaru nodded, understanding what he was trying to say. It certainly did make sense. Before she could say something to boost his confidence, their conversation were cut short by their teacher entering the room.
"I'll talk to you guys again later," were the only words that left her lips before she sat properly in her seat. Yamaguchi went back to his too, which was just a few seats away from them. Tsukishima as well, had hid his headphones inside his bag so as not to get scolded as the lesson had finally started shortly after the teacher stepped inside the room.
Hotaru was on her way to the gym after changing into her given uniform which was composed of the black jacket, over a plain white shirt and a pair of black trousers. She was passing by when she caught a glimpse of a fidgety Hinata wearing what seemed to be a pair of trousers twice his size. It hang loosely around his hips.
A bubble of laughter escaped her lips. It was quite amusing to see his antics and it never gets old. She was holding onto her stomach, still laughing hard at the situation the ginger-haired boy was currently in.
Not until Tanaka went out, wearing nothing but a pair of pink boxers. He was fully-clothed on the upper half of his torso and it made her all the more speechless and unable to calm down from her laughing spree.
"Hinata! That's my jersey, dammit!" Tanaka cursed as the younger boy fumbled around and apologised non-stop. She saw Kageyama peering over the older boy's shoulder even if he was taller by a few centimeters.
At the same time, a girl which Hotaru assumed is from the tennis club, went out and shrieked loudly upon seeing the said male sophomore. The poor girl nearly threw the basket of tennis balls that she was holding, to Tanaka in an act of salvaging her now corrupted eyes.
"Tanaka, you pervert! Put on some pants!" The girl yelled loudly, enough for all of the members to hear from the club room and also for Hinata and Tanaka himself.
"Tanaka-senpai, you better put on decent clothing before someone reports you to the vice-prinicpal!" Hotaru called out, cackling wildly as she proceeded to go inside the gymnasium. The last thing she saw was the buzz-cut haired male freaking out about how Hinata should give him back his pants.
It seemed like Hotaru was becoming too fond of the crows, more than she thought she ever would.
The next day, classes went by unexpectedly quicker than usual. The boys, the club advisor - Takeda-sensei, the managers - Kiyoko and Hotaru were all gathered in front of the bus that would take them to Aobajousai high school who will be their opponent for today's practice match with the said teacher driving them there.
It was not even an hour that they were travelling, when somewhere in the back of the vehicle started becoming noisy. Kiyoko and Hotaru were sitting at the very front when the latter girl decided that it was too chaotic already that she kneeled on her seat, and took a look at what's happening at the back of the bus.
At the sight of Hinata throwing up on Tanaka's precious trousers (please note the sarcasm), Hotaru's eyebrows met in the centre and made her utter in pure disbelief, "What the hell's wrong with Hinata?"
"Apparently, he's too overwhelmed that he can't even function properly. I think he'll be just fine later on." Kiyoko supplied an answer along with a reassurance from beside her, which Hotaru was grateful for.
Being a regular member of a sports team during junior high school, Hotaru was used to feeling the pressure but it was not as if she would just easily break down. At least, she tried to make herself feel better the best she could.
Hinata should try to do the same too. It was only a practice match after all. She was going to convince herself that the poor boy might have been easily scared or intimidated, when it came to her mind that the others, namely either Kageyama or Tanaka, might have said something unnecessary to make Hinata act this way.
'Those simple-minded idiots,'Hotaru begrudgingly thought, trying to stop the exasperated sigh from escaping her pink lips.
When she spotted Sawamura, Sugawara and Kageyama looking stunned to the point that they were speechless, she figured that she should say something to Hinata later on. It's also in her job as a manager too and apart from the first reason, it is also the most humane thing to do.
Shortly after, the lot of them arrived at Aobajousai. One by one, they stepped out of the bus and looked around the vicinity. It was quite huge. Probably a bit larger than their school. Seeing that it is a private high school, it was bound to be like this anyway.
On the other hand, it seemed like Hinata wasn't calming down anytime soon. And he seemed even more burdened after hearing what Tanaka told him. Kageyama's temper was getting the best of him as he watched how the ginger-haired boy seemed so restless that it took all of Sugawara's power to hold him back from pummeling the shorter boy.
This time, Hotaru finally let out the sigh she was holding back from earlier. This is going to be a loooong and troublesome day.
The five of them were on their way to who-knows-where. Hotaru did not even know how come she ended up accompanying Tanaka, Kageyama, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi in the first place. Trouble will probably find its way to them sooner or later, knowing how easily it comes to the oldest among the five of them.
And it definitely came true a few seconds after she thought of that, when they heard two male voices talking. To be specific, they were talking about their team, Karasuno. And to be more specific, the two boys were now talking about Tanaka, describing him as a crude, buzz-cut guy with an idiotic look on his face (which is quite true, in Hotaru's honest opinion but without the idiotic look).
'Just a few moments earlier, they were still talking about Kiyoko-senpai. How in the hell did they suddenly end up talking about Tanaka-senpai? Of all times, why now?'Hotaru smacked her palm over her face, knowing what would happen next.
Still, the pride of being in Karasuno despite being called former championsand flightless crows,was still there. She always take pride of what school wherever she's in. And she won't let some other school think of them as puny and can easily be defeated.
Tanaka poke his head from the side of the wall, revealing himself to the two members of Aobajousai's boys volleyball club, startling them along the way.
Both were tall but the first guy is probably the same height as Tsukishima. He had black, spiky hair which reminded Hotaru of a turnip of some sort. And the other was of the same height as Kageyama and had lighter hair.
Karasuno's second year wing-spiker walked to them, stopping just a few feet away before saying his line intimidatingly, "If you look down on us, we'll chew you up and spit you alive."
And it seemed like it did the trick to stop them from talking shit about their team. The fact that all of them stared at the two, poor boys with either condescending or impassive looks, with the exemption of Yamaguchi who seemed to try to avoid trouble, just added to the intensity. Hotaru swore that she heard crows cawing and the flapping of their wings.
Tsukishima spoke in a mocking tone, surprising Hotaru that he would even dare join Tanaka in his Mission: Intimidate, "You shouldn't really intimidate them like that Tanaka-san."
"Look," as if proving his point, he tilted his head to look at the two members of Aobajousai's team who stared at him slightly agitated. "You scared the poor elites. Pitiful, aren't they."
"I-It's not like we're scared of you or anything!" The raven-haired one defensively stuttered.
"Yeah, you're right. I should only bully them during the match," was only Tanaka's response as he and Tsukishima smugly stood there.
It made her snort, making the boys' attention to turn towards her. They were probably pretty confused because she saw the questioning gazes they gave her.
"Geez, you guys. Stop that. Captain will get mad at us if you caused trouble and jeopardize the practice match because you scared two of their members away." Her brown orbs stared at the Aobajousai students, as if challenging them. In the corner of her eyes, she could see Tanaka's approving gaze along with Tsukishima who smirked at her.
"By the way, are you two regular members?" She asked and before they could even respond, Sawamura suddenly appeared with a panicked expression.
"I only took my eyes off you guys for a few seconds!" The captain exclaimed and immediately, Tsukishima nonchalantly walked a few steps away from the scene while Hotaru just quickly switched expressions, making her appear innocent as she followed her classmate to the side.
Sawamura apologised in their stead but the taller male with turnip-like hairstyle was not finished just yet and had decided that he had a bone to pick with Kageyama.
"Been a while hasn't it, your highness?" This earned him curious stares from everybody. Kageyama did not respond and was just looking down.
"What sort of dictatorship are you making them subject to? I'm looking forward to it," the said guy smirked pompously as if he knew what he was saying.
This made Hotaru irritated. She knew there was some sort of past that Kageyama has a problem dealing with and it was probably connected to his junior high school days. And she understood it well because she went through the same although not the exact same thing as him...most probably.
Still, Karasuno's members did not seem to be the least bit fazed with what he said and in turn, Kageyama just simply answered after a long pause, "...Sure."
With that, all of them walked away, with Kageyama getting a slap on the back from Tanaka and one on the head from Sugawara, apparently for being a cheeky kouhai.
"...The heck. That guy pretending to be nice and all." The guy with spiky hairstyle muttered, more to himself rather than to his companion.
"Who's that girl anyway? I thought Karasuno only had one manager?" The light-haired male stated out loud in confusion as they watched Karasuno's team walk away.
Hey guys! TheWhimsicalNoirette is back! :)
I think this update is quite longer than usual? I bet 'coz it's above my usual limit which is 1500+ words. Haha.
Anyway, I hope you found this chapter fun because I found it enjoyable when I was writing this.
Hopefully, y'all like it too.
Thank you for the never-ending support and love for this story by the way!
I really appreciate a lot. 3
