Thank you so much to S. yons, Sayori1412, Shadow Wolf 15846, SumCheeze, Huohua Devessa, Sapphiresushi, Onesie Queen, WinneThePoohLover, Aster Sipping Waterfalls, EatMyBubbles, LegendaryLight, Tododorkis, and Gloeckche for your support!


It was her tenth night (in total, not in a row) at the Tsukishima's when Mikaela finally worked up the nerve to ask Tsukishima what she'd been thinking. "Hey, Tsukishima," she called from her spot on the couch as he passed by the living room. He paused and glared at her. "Are we friends?"

"No," he called back with a scowl on his face, heading into the kitchen. There was a brief shuffling of objects before he returned to the living room, adjusting his glasses. "No, we're most certainly not," he confirmed.

"Can we be?" Mikaela asked, cocking her head. "Friends, I mean."

He scoffed. "We know nothing about each other."

"Actually, you know more about me than almost anyone else," she contradicted.

"I mean, simple things."

"Then why don't you ask?"

Tsukishima paused, glaring at her, before his glare softened and he sat down in the chair across from her. "What do you propose?" he said tiredly.

Her eyes lit up. "Seriously? You're up for being friends?"

"Well, otherwise you'd pester me all night and that'd just be annoying, so I'm getting it over with now."

Mikaela rolled her eyes at the typical Tsukishima response. "How about twenty questions?" she asked, and Tsukishima waved his hand to show he didn't care. "Fine. Favourite food?"

He paused. "That's your first question?"

"Yep."

"...Strawberries," he muttered, and Mikaela had to fight the grin trying to appear on her face. "What's your favourite colour?"

She laughed. "That's your first question?"

"Shut up. I'll go to bed-"

"No, wait." Mikaela sighed, sinking into the couch. "I'd say black, but I'm not sure if you're the type that'll chew me out because 'black isn't a colour, it's a shade'." He rolled his eyes. Her voice softened. "Green," she said quietly, "like a dark forest green. How about you?"

Tsukishima didn't answer right away, holding her gaze for a while before lacing his fingers and tearing his gaze away. "Blue," he replied quietly. "Dark blue."

Their banter continued for a while, jumping through questions like favourite books or movies, favourite desserts or subjects, before Mikaela realized how tired she was and admitted that she should probably get to sleep. Tsukishima made sure to point out that she had used eleven questions out of twenty and he had used ten, and Mikaela didn't bother complaining because at least he was opening up to her, bit by bit.

She never even realized that his favourite colour had been the colour of her eyes.


They were so close. It was October 10th, just a little over two weeks from the playoffs, and Mikaela was just as excited as the rest of the team to finally play the team they were up against, Johzenji. Her guess was just that the team wanted to play another game for real- their last training camp with Nekoma, Fukurodani, and the surrounding teams was just over a week ago and she was itching for an official game.

Mikaela fidgeted anxiously at her desk, trying to pay attention to the English lesson but to no avail. They were going over synchronized attacks in practice tonight and she was super excited to help coordinate positions.

"Shoot," her teacher muttered suddenly. "I forgot to photocopy the homework." The class cheered, but she shook her head. "I'll go do that now. I'll take someone to help me out- how about you, Tsukishima. Review the lesson while I'm gone."

Mikaela snickered to herself as the blond groaned but didn't argue, standing up in his seat and following the teacher out of the classroom. She smirked at him as he passed and he glared at her. They left, and the classroom immediately erupted into chatter, because no one was planning on reviewing any sort of lesson.

Yamaguchi turned around in his seat so he could talk to her. "Were you paying attention?"

"Nope," she replied.

"Darn it," he muttered. "I forget what she said the English translation for a bunch of words was."

She jerked her chin at Tsukishima's open notebook. "Tsukishima probably copied them down."

Yamaguchi's eyes lit up. "Oh, great idea." As he turned around, Mikaela glanced up at the class and caught Kahano's gaze. The auburn-haired girl was glaring at her again, and her best friend was muttering into her ear. Yamaguchi turned back to her. "Kaela, what-"

"Shit," she mumbled as Kahano and her friend both stood up from their desks.

"What?" Yamaguchi turned and his face paled. "Oh crap."

Kahano was making a beeline for her and Mikaela resisted the temptation to hide under her desk so she could avoid this conversation entirely. "What do you want, Kahano?" she said tiredly as the auburn-haired girl stopped in front of her desk.

"I want an apology," she said firmly.

Mikaela shrugged. "Okay, I'm sorry."

"Sincerely," Kahano's friend pushed, glaring at her.

The manager raised her eyebrows. "Look, I've already apologized. I don't know why you're still pissed at me-"

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by Kahano's friend, a girl with pin-straight black hair and a pretty face. "You ruined her confession," the girl said icily, "she's got plenty reason to be mad at you."

"I apologized," Mikaela snapped. "I honestly didn't mean to. What more do you want me to do?"

Kahano snorted. "You're a filthy liar, for one thing."

"Liar?" Mikaela could hear her voice rising. She barely acknowledged Yamaguchi's hand on her arm. "Excuse me? I never lied."

"You told me you didn't like him and didn't see him that way," the auburn-haired girl hissed, her eyes narrowed into slits. "But you're always hanging out with him and he'd rather hang out with you than me. All you two do is spend time around each other. You can't try and lie and tell me nothing's going on."

Mikaela felt her cheeks burn. "I never lied!" she snapped, crossing her arms so she wouldn't be tempted to lunge across the desk and punch her. "There's nothing going on between us. I genuinely didn't mean to ruin your confession, I'm sorry."

"It wouldn't have changed his answer, anyways," Yamaguchi added.

God bless his soul. Kahano rounded on Yamaguchi, shoving her hands down on the desk. "How would you know that?" she snarled.

To his credit, the pinch server didn't back down. "Because I'm his best friend," Yamaguchi replied calmly. "He never intended on returning your feelings whether Mikaela had accidentally butted in or not."

Mikaela could've cried- this boy was a saint. "I-"

"Why?!" Kahano hissed, throwing her hands in the air, her eyes filled with fury. "Why would he rather be around someone like you?" It felt like venom was dripping from her words. Mikaela did her best not to flinch. "What've you got that I don't?"

Mikaela shrugged. "A brain?"

"Bitch," Kahano's friend quipped.

The black-haired girl raised her shoulders. "Sorry, first thing that came to mind."

"Exactly, you're a bitch," Kahano said, glaring at her. "So why would he pick you over me?"

"Takes one to know one," Mikaela grumbled, and Kahano's eyes flashed with fury. "And, by the way, he never 'picked' anyone. He just turned you down. Accept it already and stop badgering me about it."

Yamaguchi nodded. "Yeah, leave Kaela out of this."

Kahano looked frustrated enough to tear her hair out. She shot a desperate look at her best friend, who was glaring so fiercely at Mikaela that she wouldn't have been surprised if she turned to ice. The entire class seemed to be holding their breath collectively. "It's not fair," she cried out, miserable. "I don't get it, why would he hang out with you over me? I'm..." She trailed off.

Ice Girl grabbed Kahano's hand. "You did nothing wrong," she said quickly, and Mikaela almost admired how much she stuck up for her best friend. Almost. "She's just a bitch who always gets her way."

Mikaela's eyebrows shot to the top of her head. "Excuse me? You know nothing about me."

Her lip curled up in a sneer. "I bet you live out of your parents' pockets," she mocked, and Mikaela felt her heart speed up in her chest. Don't you dare go there. "They're just like you, I bet. Cold-hearted and don't care about anyone but themselves, not even their own daughter-"

She stood up so fast that the desk almost toppled over. Several students jumped in surprise from the noise. "Kaela," Yamaguchi hissed, grabbing her wrist. She shook him off, her midnight blue eyes trained on the girl next to Kahano.

"Yuka, that's enough," Kahano mumbled, tugging on her friend's sleeve.

Yuka shook her head. "No, Kahano-chan, this bitch needs to know what we're all thinking."

"Don't," Mikaela said in a low voice, glaring at her. "Don't you dare talk about me like you know anything."

"Yeah? Then stop acting like such a privileged bitch," Yuka snarled, shaking off Kahano's feeble attempt to hold her back. "No, Kahano, get off me, she needs to get what's coming to her. She's been a bitch to you."

Mikaela was getting close to snapping. "Back down."

"How come you wear leggings, huh?" the dark-haired girl said loudly, jabbing a finger at Mikaela's covered legs. "You have to be different from the rest of us? You need to stand out? You need to be better than the rest of us slobs, huh?"

"You don't know anything!" she yelled.

"Really? Because I know you're rude, arrogant, and think you're better than the rest of the world," Yuka countered, leaning closer to her. "Is it because you're foreign? Got a fancy name? Are you going to go home crying to your Daddy? Maybe he'll buy you another set of leggings-"

Fuck it.

Mikaela lunged across the desk and punched Yuka straight across the jaw.

The girl tumbled backwards, and Kahano lunged out, trying to catch Yuka before she fell into the desk. She cupped her hands to her jaw, her mouth opened in a gasp. "You-"

"I've got a metal leg, asshole!"

If the class wasn't surprised before, they certainly were gaping like fish now.

"And my dad's dead," Mikaela snapped angrily, her voice dangerously close to cracking, "thanks for asking."

A heavy silence followed, broken only by Mikaela's heavy breathing and Yuka's ragged sobs as she cupped her chin. Mikaela reached a hand up to her face and felt tears on her cheeks. Ah, shit. She rubbed at her eyes furiously. Yamaguchi had grabbed her wrist, like he expected her to lunge again. She didn't make eye contact with him- Mikaela was having a glare-off with Yuka, who was staring at her with red-rimmed eyes.

"What on Earth is going on?!"

Of course, now the teacher finally managed to come back, with Tsukishima in tow- Mikaela could see them out of the corner of her eye.

"Mikaela, why are you up? Yuka? What's going on?" The teacher's questions were rapid-fire, and no one was answering, instead choosing to stare at either Yuka on the floor or Mikaela. "Yuka, are you bleeding?" she demanded, stepping forwards. "What's going on?"

"Mikaela?"

Tsukishima's voice was like music to her ears. She finally moved her gaze from Yuka up to the blond. "Hey," she muttered, meeting his eyes and then immediately dropping her gaze.

"You're..." He moved towards her and extended his hand, before he thought the better of it and dropped his hand again. Mikaela's heart ached, and she couldn't figure out why.

"If no one answers, I will give everyone detention," the teacher threatened.

Mikaela turned towards her. "I punched her." Before the teacher could even begin to ask why, Mikaela pushed past Tsukishima and towards the door. "I'm going to the office," she said over her shoulder, "because I'm assuming that where you'll send me anyways."

She resisted the urge to slam the door behind her. Her knuckles stung.

In spite of herself, she grinned.

Worth it.


The school nurse came down to the office with Yuka in tow. Mikaela had to resist the urge to grin.

Their teacher eventually showed up, muttering something that Mikaela couldn't catch. She led them both into a section of the principal's office and sat them down behind a desk, taking a seat on the opposite side. Mikaela nearly groaned when she saw the principal walk in, shutting the door behind him and taking a seat next to their teacher. He sighed, folding his arms. "So, who wants to tell me what happened?"

A heartbeat of silence followed before Yuka spoke up. "She punched me."

Mikaela rolled her eyes. The principal turned towards her. "Is that true?"

"Yep."

"Why'd you punch her?"

Mikaela slumped further into her seat. Personally, she didn't care what kind of punishment they gave her- she just wanted to leave. "She was insulting me and my family, and it was especially bothersome because she was insulting my recently deceased father."

She saw Yuka's mouth drop- apparently she hadn't mentioned the 'recently' part. "I'm sorry for your loss," her teacher said quietly, and Mikaela shrugged, staring at the floor. "But no matter how much you were provoked and for whatever reasons, physical harassment is never something we can overlook."

"I'm aware," Mikaela replied.

Yuka piped up. "She was being rude to me and Kahano. That's why I was getting defensive. And I didn't even say anything bad."

Mikaela turned her head so she could glare at her. "Nothing bad? I quote, 'they're just like you, cold-hearted and probably don't care about you'. Say what you want, Yuka, but the entire class heard you."

The principal raised his eyebrows. "Is that true, Yuka?"

"Well, she said some shitty stuff too," Yuka mumbled.

He chose to ignore her word choice. "That's not what I asked."

"Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know her dad was dead? And that she had a... a fucking metal leg?" Yuka spat, glaring at Mikaela. "It's not like she's friends with anyone, nobody knows anything about her."

Mikaela was about to object and point out that Yamaguchi and Tsukishima were two of her closest friends when the teacher cut her off. "Pardon me if I heard wrong, but you have a... metal leg?" she asked.

"It's called a prosthetic," Mikaela said icily, trying (and failing) to not sound sarcastic. "Yes."

"Well, she always wears leggings, so how were we supposed to know?" Yuka complained. "You can't blame me for that."

"Do I need to be here while you work out my punishment?" Mikaela interrupted. "I was trying to review the words that you taught us today in English, I'd love to get back to doing that."

The principal turned to her. "You don't care for what your punishment is going to be?"

"As long as it doesn't include me abstaining from club activities," she said quickly, standing up from her seat. "Which it shouldn't, because this issue doesn't involve grades or a feud between clubs, so there's nothing that would involve pulling me from my duties. If that becomes an option for punishment, I'd be happy to stay and argue with you for as long as necessary that I don't need to abstain from club activities."

God, I'm sounding more like my mother every day.

The principal and her teacher shared a long look before the principal turned back to her. "You can return to class, Mikaela," he said quietly.

Yuka jerked up in her seat. "What? You're letting her off, just like that? How-"

Mikaela didn't hear anything else she had to say. She was already out of the office. That went well, she mused to herself, nodding to the secretary behind the desk before she exited the office. Considering I punched her in front of the entire class.

"Mikaela!"

She nearly jumped in surprise.

"Tsukishima? Yams? What're you-"

"Are you okay?" the pinch server said immediately, rushing at her and grabbing her in a hug, nearly squeezing the breath out of her. "Everyone in class is talking about it, we left because we wanted to make sure you were okay- God, Mikaela, how could she say that stuff to you? And you handled that like a champ! I mean, you shouldn't have punched her, but she deserved it, that was a good punch-"

"Yams, I can't breathe," she choked out, and Yamaguchi released her. "I'm okay, I promise. They're working out a punishment for me now."

"Punishment? Seriously?" Tsukishima said incredulously, and Mikaela turned to him, surprised. "After what she said to you?" She raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged. "Yamaguchi told me."

"Oh. Yeah, as long as they don't prevent me from missing club activities, I don't care," Mikaela said with a shrug. Her lips twisted into a smirk. "Aw, Tsukishima, I didn't know you cared."

His eyebrow twitched. "I don't," he said, "I just think what she said was unreasonably harsh, especially coming from someone who you've done nothing to."

Mikaela paused, oddly touched. "Thanks, Tsukishima."

"Well, she better get suspended or something," Yamaguchi said, determination sketched all over his face. "She was so harsh!"

"It doesn't matter," Mikaela said with a shake of her head. "It's over now anyways."

Yamaguchi pulled her in for another hug. "I hope you're okay, Kaela."

She hugged him back. "I'm good, Yams. Thank you for coming to see me."

They pulled away from each other and turned to Tsukishima, who was looking at the both of them with a weird expression on his face. Feeling bold after her rough situation, Mikaela held out her arms. "You want a hug too?" she joked, grinning.

He scowled, the tips of his ears turning red. "I don't want any sort of contact with you, your Highness. I'll probably get the plague."

"Oh, come on, just one hug-"

"Get away from me, Mikaela, don't you dare-"

"Who cares about the plague?"

"It killed a third of Europe, Kaela!"

"Yeah, but that was Europe! This is Japan!"

"That's not how it works!"

In the end, she never got a hug out of Tsukishima, but she was grinning too much to care.


They ended up giving her two weeks of detention.

It would've been suspension, easily, but Mikaela was surprised to learn that several of her peers spoke up in her defense that she was provoked and Yuka had deserved it. Yuka ended up getting a few days of detention as well, and she hadn't spoken to Mikaela once since the incident. Mikaela didn't care- if she wasn't willing to apologize, then she wouldn't either.

She had to miss portions of Karasuno's volleyball practices, which was the most upsetting part, but her coaches understood ("Nice punch, Mikaela," Coach Ukai muttered under his breath when she made it to practice late the following day) and the team, to her surprise, became fiercely overprotective. Nishinoya and Tanaka had volunteered to prank Yuka at any available point in the day ("I'm just saying, if someone were to accidentally drop a carton of spoiled milk on her, she'd deserve it!") and Sugawara had actually cracked his knuckles menacingly and volunteered to take care of the situation himself. Daichi had to hold him back.

Yuka had a nasty bruise on her cheek, which she tried to cover up with make-up, but there was only so much she could do. Mikaela's knuckles were kind of sore in the following days, but it was nothing she couldn't handle.

She avoided thinking about detentions and drama by thinking about her surgery, which was rapidly approaching. She was pretty excited. Oh, who was she kidding? She was going to play volleyball again. It was going to be the best thing that had happened to her since her accident.

But was it?

Mikaela tapped her foot repeatedly against the ground as her teacher droned on about something involving quadratics- nothing worth keeping her attention. That last thought rung out in her head like a bell. Best thing that happened to her since the accident.

Was it, though?

She glanced up, her eyes coming to rest on the back of Tsukishima's head. Her gaze flitted briefly to Yamaguchi, who was leaning over Tsukishima's page to see what notes he'd written down. She thought of the Karasuno team and all the important moments she'd shared with them. She even thought of Kuroo and Kenma from Nekoma, then Bokuto and Akaashi from Fukurodani. She never would've met them if she hadn't come to Karasuno. And she never would've come to Karasuno if...

Mikaela smiled softly, knocking her metal limb against the leg of the table.

Her surgery would be fantastic, sure. It'd be a great opportunity.

But it wasn't the best thing that happened to her since the accident.

Yamaguchi glanced over his shoulder briefly and saw Mikaela staring at him. His eyes lit up and he grinned widely, his freckles flushed out across his cheeks. Mikaela couldn't help but smile back before the pinch server turned around again.

No, this wasn't the best thing since the fire.

She knew exactly what the best thing was.


I lied- I didn't move back to the actual story line yet.

I lied again- I didn't think I'd have time to update this weekend. But I wanted to get this chapter out, and I know it's shorter than usual, but I didn't really want to combine it with something else, so voila! Surprise chapter!

Shadow Wolf 15846: Thank you so much! Thank you for your review! :)

Sapphiresushi: Aha I'm glad you liked the funeral speech! Go back to studying! Studying is important! Anyways, thank you kindly for your lovely review! :D

Sayori1412: More Tsukki in this chapter ;) I'm a huge Kuroo fan but I'm afraid the more I draw him into the story the more I'll neglect her connections with the team, I just love him so much that he's all I'd write about XD Thank you, as always, for your review! :D

Huohua Devessa: Now that I look back on it, I totally should've shown more interactions of Mikaela with Fukurodani and other Nekoma players... Ugh, regrets T^T Thank you so much for your review! :)

SumCheeze: Curious about Kahano? I hope this chapter was interesting, then ;) She's got the whole team on her side and she's slowly starting to realize that! Thank you as always for your lovely review! :D (And thank you for the luck!)

S. yons: As horribly devastating as this would be for the surgery to be a trick and Monomi's up to something again, that's not the case this time. Mikaela's crappy mother is trying to make up for her actions in a weird way, because she's got too much pride to try and apologize. Not like Mikaela would accept her apology anyways. Ugh, I love Kageyama so much T^T Thank you so much for your kind review! :D

Maybe I'll see y'all next week? Hopefully...

Much love!