[1/8/2018] : I'm baaaa-aaaaaack~! Kind of a filler chapter, but things kick off later on. Sorry for the references from multiple scenes of the play, just felt that it was nice to showcase different parts – even if, technically, they shouldn't match.

We're on the home run now, dudes. [5/8/2018] will be the date the last chapter is released. Oh my gosh…

Heartbreaker? Pfffsh...

Discombobulated Drama

To Kiyoko's upmost surprise, Hitoka had appeared to have gained a detailed guard of Karasuno volleyball players – though she had discovered so at the expense of her lunch break earlier on that day. Though, she had realised once tucked up in her bed that night, that there was probably good reason for the guard. Even Kiyoko herself hadn't had such luck with her targets.

Coach Ukai had extended to the team a few days to recuperate; that meant supposedly taking it easy, celebrating heading to the Nationals with friends and classmates (though Hinata constantly had the rip taken out of him, seeing as his classmates couldn't quite believe he was an official member of the team), and generally trying to turn their minds away from volleyball.

Not that it helped Hinata and Kageyama, but the others were glad for a reprieve. Only, in their downtime, Daichi had roped the more excitable players (and even Yamaguchi – weirdly) into a private talk.

Kōshi watched with narrowed eyes and a tight smile as the Captain waved to him as soon as the lunch bell rang; rising from his seat and descending the floors of the school to collect those he had cherry-picked to chat with. Kōshi became so suspicious that he traipsed down the hall with his lunch in hand, tapped Kiyoko on the shoulder – loudly suggesting they should eat together, at the expense of the Karasuno rumour mill taking that titbit and running wild – and asking her to spy on Daichi's little meeting.

They weren't being discreet, but anyone who chanced upon the conspicuous group in the hall (clustered by the vending machines just before the lunch hall) would have presumed it was volleyball related and leave it at that. No nefarious undertones there. None at all.

(Kōshi knew better.)

"So," Daichi stated to his amassed followers – Noya, Tanaka, and Yamaguchi. "We have a real problem on our hands. I found it weird back at the training camp, and when Oikawa turned up at the gates, but now Ushijima? Something isn't right."

Nishinoya and Tanaka could relate, seeing as they kept watchful eyes over Kiyoko and likely would until the third year graduated in the spring. Perhaps, even, beyond that point. One simply didn't loose sight of the eye of your affections. Yamaguchi, new to the 'caring for a team' experience, didn't like how Daichi's statements sat with him.

Hitoka was someone small, and always scared, and precious – and Tadashi was only just beginning to notice the finer facets of her character. Kei thought he was mental, but if that was what burgeoning love did to you, then Tadashi would happily suffer insanity for Hitoka Yachi. Too bad she didn't seem to notice how he looked at her. Or anyone else for that matter. Oikawa had been one thing but Ushijima?

Ushijima was another matter entirely, despite Karasuno beating them the other day – and that Pinch Serve, though mainly for Kei and Karasuno's sake, had never felt so sweet. Ushijima was a lot of things that Tadashi was not… and Hitoka was so small. What would she see in someone like that? Did she see anything at all?

"I say, should something like this happen again," Daichi continued, "That we stage an intervention."

A series of understanding nods reinforced his words, and Kōshi only just held back his urge to groan in frustration. He'd thought that maybe Daichi would let his paranoia over Hitoka go, but obviously that wasn't going to occur any time soon.

Beside him Kiyoko plucked her glasses from her nose, rubbed the lenses with the ribbed hem of her sweater vest, and perched them back on the skim bridge of her nose. With the fleeting glance Kōshi spared her, he was certain that she slid them back into the comfortable spot on her nose with her middle finger.

The pair had taken the longer route around the school to position themselves underneath the open window on the ground floor – closest to the vending machines – where Daichi and the others had congregated. Kōshi couldn't believe what he was hearing. Daichi was now suggesting they employ Ennoshita (who was fairly good at tinkering with cameras and technological bits and bobs) to make a (or multiple) motorised volleyball canon that Karasuno could turn on potential Hitoka-predators. Soon this plan had dissolved, though only because Nishinoya suggested feeding Hinata and Kageyama on thrice their daily sugar intake and setting them loose on intruders.

Kiyoko had quietly snorted at that, and the group inside's conversation halted. Kōshi dared not to breathe. Then –

"We're agreed then? Something has to be done?" Daichi questioned. (Kōshi could finally breathe again… Kiyoko daintily unwrapped the plastic covering on her bread, and took a gentle bite from it, raising her eyebrows at his melodrama.)

"It's weird," Tanaka agreed. Something that sounded very much like the joints in one's neck popping as said neck was cracked resounded from inside. "Kiyoko-San is fond of Yachi-Chan, so we'll keep any eye out."

"Same," Nishinoya added.

"Yamaguchi?" Daichi inquired.

"I-I uh," Tadashi sputtered. "I'll help too."

Daichi rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Great. Let's hope we don't have to do anything though."

Their retreating footsteps complimented the staccato beating of Kōshi's heart. "That was too close for comfort," he sighed. Kiyoko didn't comment further, but the mocking arch of her eyebrows said it all. "Okay, maybe not."

Hitoka, meanwhile, was completely unaware of the Hitoka Yachi Protection Association's first meeting, or the covert self-imposed mission Kōshi had made Kiyoko tag along to. With her downtime fully intended to be spent on her studies and a little bit of relaxation and recuperation, Hitoka had brought with her a healthy lunch that she'd had time to make herself that morning without having to worry over organising things for the club, and her half-read copy of Twelfth Night which she was trying to finish.

She wasn't one to dog ear pages or annotate margins, but the plot had drawn her in enough once the initial confusion subsided. Therein, Hitoka had taken a nice bright highlighter to particular passages that caught her eye.

Most of the lines were now marked with wobbly scratchings of orange highlighter pen and mechanical pencil annotations. She'd even found a few book tabs in her desk draw at home, pinpointing different scenes that Hitoka favoured. Currently, Hitoka was rereading Cesario and Olivia's first meeting, and wondering how it was both so wrong and so right.

Sort of like her own life, really.

She'd slept fretfully the night before, bothered by Bokuto's out-of-the-blue text. Caps lock typed messages swam before her eyes whenever she checked through her inbox, searching for a hidden clue about why he was possibly getting in contact with her now of all times. Sure, Hinata was a likely accomplice – and the Nekoma regulars too – but there had to be some other meaning.

Hitoka didn't think she had the heart to hope there was a message, and that she wasn't worthy of one. They'd parted amicably, and that was that. She had one target still to rid herself of, and the club needed her attention now more than ever. She'd couldn't afford to hope. Too much rested on her shoulders for the moment. She couldn't afford to hope…

Hitoka sighed, closing her copy of the play. She picked idly at her nicely presented bento; chopsticks shifting through the fluffy rice, splitting the egg rolls, and idling over a few octopi-shaped sausages she'd nearly sliced her fingers off preparing that morning. Perhaps this was how her mother felt whenever there was a deadline – too distracted, too wound up to eat.

Maybe, Hitoka thought, she should speak with Kiyoko and Kōshi before they went home for the day. Hitoka wasn't listed for classroom clean-up duty, and she sat close enough to the rear exit of the room that the teacher wouldn't pick on her to help with menial tasks after the bell rang. Her homework had all been handed in that morning, so there was nothing really to stop Hitoka from just diving from her seat once she was dismissed.

Kiyoko would have some words of advice, and maybe Kōshi would smile and make everything better again. They still had to take her out for a treat at the café Kiyoko had recommended – having been too busy to do so in the past few weeks. Heck, Hitoka would drag them there and pay for everyone's drinks if it meant she could spill her problems like an overflowing cup.

So, dived from her seat did Hitoka, startling half her classmates and her teacher as she hastily stuffed her books and pencil case into her backpack and walked as quickly as she could out of the door and up the hall towards the stairs. She bolted up two flights to the third year's level, catching sight of Kiyoko as she wandered out of her own class.

They collected a reluctant Kōshi from the distrustful watch of Daichi; the latter only relenting as Hitoka promised it was time for her to show her mentors the results of her confidence lessons in public, and that they'd been planning (and putting off) this outing for an age. It wasn't a complete lie, and well, Daichi seemed appeased.

The trio didn't quite make it to the café Kiyoko had intended to show them, instead hopping on the closest bus and riding it into the better part of town – the same area Hitoka had shopped in not too long ago. She took the initiative, leading Kiyoko and Kōshi to the café where Ushijima had spilt coffee over her arm. They place served great food, welcomed everyone inside, and it was clean; what more could you ask for?

(Someone not spilling coffee on her again, Hitoka supposed.)

"I've-"

"We've-"

"N-no, go- go ahead," Hitoka instead to Kiyoko.

The third year took a hesitant sip from her latte – generously bought by Hitoka. She glanced briefly at Kōshi, but the teen was busy chasing the straw in his tall milkshake glass as it evaded his mouth.

Sighing, Kiyoko said, "We've got a bit of a problem."

Hitoka gulped. That didn't sound promising.

"Sawamura-San is planning to stage an intervention," Kiyoko continued. "He's paranoid that someone – namely Ushijima – is going to turn up to our practices again. He's certain that people are only turning up and paying attention to harass you."

I mean, Hitoka thought, he's not entirely wrong.

Ushijima and his team had been rather off-putting with their staring the other day, and Hitoka had never been certain if Oikawa and Iwaizumi had been playing around or genuinely sincere with their perusal of her. The second date had seemed more like a goading attempt than a chance at wooing Karasuno's manager in training.

Noticing how the zipper on her bag and half of her books were in disarray, Hitoka made an attempt to sort through them. She ended up tipping most of her books – including Twelfth Night – across the tabletop.

"I was going to say I ha-have a problem too," Hitoka admitted, making no attempt to clear up the mess she had made with her things. Showing Kiyoko her phone was a lot easier than trying to explain her predicament, and that was precisely what Hitoka did after sifting through the haphazard pile she'd created.

"I don't really see what you're worrying about though," Kiyoko folded her hands across her lap, leaning back from the table. "It appears that Bokuto-San is just being friendly."

"But what if he's not?" Hitoka wailed, missing how Kōshi had started to smack his forehead against the table top in frustration (they'd gone around in circles in this conversation for the past half an hour…) Kiyoko did not, however, and she hissed at her fellow third year to stop that instant.

Kōshi rubbed at the sore spot on his forehead. "Sorry about that. Had a bit of brain freeze. But Kiyoko is right; I don't think you've got a lot to worry about there." He spied something – someone – passing their window seat and froze. "Rather… you should be worried about what's going to happen-"

The bell beside the entrance of the café, signalling the arrival of a new customer, trilled as the door opened. Welcoming calls resounded from behind the counter and in the kitchens. Soft, sticky footsteps – the kind only made by rubber soles on a smooth unyielding surface – came closer to the trio's table.

"Yachi-San."

"Ushi-Ushijima-San?"

Kiyoko cleared her throat delicately. "Would you like another drink, Kōshi-San?"

"Oh, um, yes." Kōshi stood awkwardly, thighs bumping against the edge of the table and rocking all of the glasses on it precariously. "I think I'll go with you to the register."

Hitoka watched them scuttle away, her panic mounting. She chanced a look at Ushijima and shrank back in her seat when she found him staring intensely back.

"I had not hoped to find you in here again," he said, meaning the café.

"We… it was… we hadn't planned to be here, ruh-really."

Silence. Ushijima's eyes raked over the table, fixing on Hitoka's books. He took what – to Hitoka's eyes and ears – sounded like a deep breath. Then, he spoke. Voice deep and burbling along with the iambic pentameter's flow.

"I could not stay behind you. My desire, more sharp than filèd steel, did spur me forth; and not all love to see you, though so much as might have drawn one to a longer voyage, but jealousy what might befall your travel, being skill-less in these parts, which to a stranger, unguided and unfriended, often prove rough and unhospitable. My willing love, the rather by these arguments of fear. Set forth in your pursuit." [1]

Hitoka was dumbstruck by Wakatoshi's recital, as word perfect as it was, because it was one passage she had only just reached in the play. It was one, if she had understood it correctly, meant more to the character Antonio than it did to the recipient of the speech – Sebastian. One that spoke of love, the likes of Helena's dogged pursuit of Demetrius through the forest of Arden could compare.

Kiyoko and Kōshi took that opportune moment to return, sliding into the booth. Kōshi slurped at his refilled milkshake judgingly. Ushijima cleared his throat, backing away from the table.

"Make me a willow cabin," Hitoka blurted. "–at your gate and call upon my soul within the house." [2]

It was at that point that Hitoka discovered that a smiling Wakatoshi Ushijima could cure all ailments, put an end to war, and unite nations peacefully. She raised a hand to heart, unknowingly.

Still smiling, Wakatoshi nodded to Hitoka. "Madam, I will." [3]

[1] Shakespeare, William, Twelfth Night (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), (3.3.4-13), p.166-7

[2] (1.5.157-8), p.116

[3] (4.1.63), p.191