Disclaimer: All the rights of the manga Haikyuu and its characters to Haruichi Furudate.
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Chapter 08: Confrontation
Shiratorizawa's gym
The sound of the ball bouncing on the court and the transient swishing steps echoed. The trainer watched them, trying to find the flaws; he crossed his arms pondering thoughtfully. There were some spectators on the first floor, watching the training, most of them fans from the team and of Ushikawa, and there were some journalists taking pictures from the team and players.
Tendou casted a glance at the spectators, and snorted, most of them were other players that had admiration for their team, and some were girls, to whom he beckoned, unfortunately they seemed to have some repulse for him. His eyes stopped on another interesting figure, on a corner of the grandstands, he detected a girl similar to…
"Hoshi-chan?"
"Pay attention to the ball!"
His eyes came back quickly to the court, but it wasn't fast enough to catch, it hit his head and he dropped back with a dramatic thud.
"What were you looking at, Tendou?!" he listened to the coach's voice reverberating on his eardrums.
"… Why did you get distracted?" Ushijima appeared on his line vision and offered a hand to help, after all, the demonic serve which hit Tendou was his.
"Ah, I saw Hoshino-chan." He answered smiling while standing up and massaging his red forehead.
Ushijima flinched, and averted his gaze to the grandstand too, but someone commented touching his shoulder smoothly.
"Hey, what's gotten into Tendou and you today?" Ohira smiled waiting for some response. "You two were looking up there…" he also searched for something "Oh, don't tell me it's…" he raised a brow "Is there some special fan cheering for you two up there?"
Ushijima's eyes widened slightly in surprise with his companion's guess, he was right about being a girl, maybe not so accurate on the "special fan" part, she was far from being their fan; The other two immediately noticed the subtle change on his expression, but he answered with the same vague tone he had:
"No. Tendou had the impression he had seen a familiar person."
"That's right." The red-haired thumbed up to Ohira.
The other companion took a good look at them before running to his position again, and this time, Tendou elbowed his taller friend.
"What was that face just now?" his smirk had an insinuative tone.
"Which face? I only have one." Ushijima retorted walked back to his position, not even bothering to look at his teammate when answering.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
After the training inside the gym, they'd have to run around the school outskirts and go back before the afternoon ended. Ushijima was leading the way, as always. His gaze was concentrated on the path ahead, and on the tournaments he had to win, his devotion to his goal was impeccable.
Then, in the middle of the crowd walking out the gym, he caught a glimpse of a peculiar figure, his eyes traveled to the side and he stopped his running, he was sure it was…
"Asami…?"
The name came as a perplexed murmur. For a moment, his eyes flashed again, searching any vestige of her on that crowd, but he didn't find anything, his daydreaming was interrupted suddenly, when a hand slapped his back energetically.
"Did you decide to deaccelerate today, Wakatoshi-kun?" he jested "Are you trying to give us an advantage?"
"It's not a competition." He assured and ran faster.
"Uh? Did I get on his nerves?" he felt a bit blamed for provoking his companion "Hey, cool down, it was a joke!" he tried to catch up the pace of his irritated friend.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Almost at the sunset, when most students were going home, Ushijima was the first to reach near school, when he stopped to cross the street, he saw a disturbing scene: Arata and Asami. The blonde rebel had a hand around his sister's shoulder and obviously was pushing her somewhere away from people's sights.
He frowned when Arata turned on the next corner, taking the girl with him. It could not regard him in any sense, since he didn't know her for long, nor he should get involved into trouble related to that guy, but he followed them regardless of the consequences that could befall him. Nothing good came from Arata, and he couldn't simply ignore what he saw.
This time, Arata was alone, he let go of her shoulder and stood in front of her, firing a cigarette. She averted her eyes, in disgust and the guy smiled in relish for her annoyance.
"So, sis… I've been very busy lately… There are some people who can't understand rules at all, so I have to solve it before it becomes a big mess, you know, the boss needs to show 'who' makes the rules or everything will be chaotic."
"I don't care about your problems. Why did you call me here? Be succinct, different from you I don't have time to waste idly." She retorted in a harsh, serious tone.
"Hey, " he grabbed her cheeks with a hand and turned her face to him "You shouldn't talk to your brother like that. I don't like this tone of disdain you're using."
"… Me neither." She removed his hand like it was something nasty.
"What a…" he paused and sighed heavily "The case is, there is someone from another school entering my way, and I still didn't have time to deal with those two good-buddies you have… But they'll have their turn…"
"Don't you dare to-"
He interrupted her phrase wafting smoke on her face, and she coughed, covering her mouth:
"What? Ah, sorry, you can't continue, because you're coughing. Does it bother you, this smoke?"
She covered her mouth and nose and glared infuriated at him, he smirked and guffawed.
"I really like this enthusiasm of yours! I really it, sis, that's why…" he again, put a hand around her shoulder, shaking her a bit like they were good friends and he exhaled more smoke into the air "That's why I'm telling you that you should hang around with other people, they're not good friends for you. I'm saying it only because I worry about you."
"Take care of your own life." She pushed him away "I'm sure you have problems enough alone…"
"What a stubborn girl." He shook his head "I'm trying to-"
Before he completed the sentence, they felt a presence and heard steps treading heavily on the ground, it was Ushijima. There was only a small frown on his brows, but there was a powerful aura coming out from him, it expressed some anger.
"Look, your lil' boyfriend came to pick ya, isn't it cool?" Arata joked and she scowled at him. "But," he narrowed his eyes sharply to Ushijima "Can't you read the mood? Couldn't you be more sensible here? We're having a brother-sister talk right now. We don't have room for strangers."
"I don't care." His insipid tone carried a defiant aspect that elicited a challenging smile on the face of the blonde.
"O-ho… You have a good attitude." He smirked in admiration "I like it, here, you can have her!"
He pushed brusquely Hoshino she stumbled forward, until Ushijima held her arm to stop her staggering steps. She was flabbergasted and indignant when her foster brother referred to her like a thing. Ushiwaka's eyes were only seeing the devilish boy in front of him.
"As I've said… You'll have your turn…"Arata stepped closer in a menacing way and rubbed the cigarette in Ushijima's jacket to extinguish the fire.
"Just wait until I solve some issues outside… You'll regret for getting on my way." His threatening whisper matched his bloodshot eyes that were filled with hatred.
A black mark was left on Ushijima's jacket, but it didn't intimidate him a tad, he was indeed an intrepid man. The rebel teen smiled in satisfaction, if he was not, he'd be bored with his new rival:
"See ya, sis."
He sneered and stretched his hand to ruffle her hair violently, but someone grabbed his wrist in reflex, it was his opponent again. He clicked his tongue and yanked his arm with the same defiant smirk. Ushijima's eyes followed him until he disappeared from sight. On the next instant, his eyes turned instantly to Hoshino, startling her, he had the usual stoic face. She could swear he wasn't the same guy who defied her brother just a moment ago.
"Are you feeling well?"
"H-huh?" Hoshino was still surprised with his abrupt question. "I am… But, shouldn't I be the one asking that?" she raised a brow looking at the black mark from the cigarette.
The ace of Shiratorizawa rubbed the jacket, but it didn't work, then, he merely abandoned the idea of rubbing it, when he washed it would be clean again anyways.
"That was nothing." he assured with his immutable strictness.
"But… How have you found us?" she casted a confused glance at him, she was curious with his sudden apparition.
"…" he recoiled a bit when her gaze stationed on his eyes. "I saw that guy dragging you and followed you two." He resumed the words.
"Ah… That makes sense, he is very suspicious… I'd follow him if he dragged someone too…" she admitted "But I thought you were too concentrated on your volleyball to pay attention to the surroundings, you did a good job! Thank you!" she smiled and patted his shoulder twice as some sort of rewards for helping her.
"You're welcome…?"
He was puzzled. For him there was absolutely nothing strange in helping if a person really needed, on her case, even if it was any other person, he'd probably have followed Arata anyways since he suspected everything coming from that guy was evil. His little reflection about the matter was ceased when he remembered something important: the training schedule! He should have arrived at the gym by now…
"What? Did something happen?" she asked worriedly after noticing a minor change on his expression.
"No… I need to go back to the training… You can accompany me to the entrance."
"No, no I'm fine. I have to go to my part-time job or my boss will fire me, I have been missing for almost a week."
She placed both hands on his back and pushed him forward with some efforts. He was confused with her actions again. She only stopped when they were on a more visible place where people circulated frequently:
"Just go to the training, and give a 'hi' to Tendou-san for me!" she beckoned with a soft smile.
"Right."
He answered vaguely and watched as she went away, he understood that girl less every time they met, her changing of mood was it something common or was it just him that had the impression she was different every time? Then, he focused on his running again, but when he arrived at the gym the whole team was there.
Their eyes were amused to see he, who was always the first one to arrive being the one late, and some worry dwelled on their curious glances:
"What did happen, Wakatoshi-kun?" Satori smiled nervously "We thought something bad had happened to you!" he noticed the small black stain on his friend's jacket "What did happen?!" His eyes almost pulled out.
"We were already thinking about searching for you." Ohira sighed in relief.
"Sorry. I had a contretemps."
Although his expression was unfazed, he sounded upset telling that. Firstly, feeling blamed for not respecting the rules of the team, and secondly, because he felt a persistent irritation for Arata and a frown formed involuntarily on his face every time he remembered that cynical face of the blonde. He evoked the most wild, tempestuous feelings of anger inside Ushijima, letting him unhinged to think on anything besides crushing the blonde.
While the whole team wondered just what in the world had happened for him to say such thing. He never had any difficult when coming back and had never got late to the training once, just what did happen for him to admit he had faced a difficult situation to handle?
Satori was able to catch a wind of the problem with a single glance. He curved down his mouth; he was beginning to worry about the consequences of meddling with the dark affairs of the student Arata. Perhaps, being near Hoshino wasn't a good influence on their performance. What should they do?
CHAPTER 08/END
