Hiyori pov

'Hiyori sweetie, we're leaving now, will you and Oikawa-kun be okay together?'

I put the tray I had just picked up back on the counter and walked over to the hallway, where my parents were putting on their shoes.

'Of course, we'll be just fine, so stop worrying and enjoy your date.'

'But what if he tries something?' My dad said.

'Dad, we've been over this. He's not going to try anything, he's a good guy.'

'She's right honey, have some faith in the poor boy.'

My mom stepped forward to give me a hug and a kiss on the top of my head. She then grabbed dad's hand and pulled him towards the open door.

'Have fun, okay?'

'Yes mom, you too!'

And with that they were gone.

Walking back into the kitchen, I carefully picked up my tray of drinks and snacks again and slowly walked up the stairs. Once I had successfully managed that, I walked over to my room and placed the platter on the table and sat down on a lavender pillow. Oikawa would be here at two o' clock, so I had a little under fifteen minutes left before he got here.

I used the time to let my mind wander back to yesterday. True to his word, we had all gone to Starbooks to celebrate Aoba Johsei's victory. Since Chi-chan hadn't been present when we made that promise, I'd cornered her when the boys were changing and invited her to come along. It didn't take much to convince her, just a mention of a very muscular, tanned boy and she was more than willing to make the detour. But I'd like to think that my own charm and beautiful face also had something to do with it.

It had been incredibly fun, just joking around and getting to know each other more. Oikawa-san and I had also taken the opportunity to add Chi-chan to our group chat. Turns out, the sworn tradition to wish each other goodnight turned out to be a lie, thank you Matsukawa and Hanamaki for letting make a fool out of myself. I'd have to thank Chi-chan for pointing that one out. Naturally we had to rename the group chat, which Oikawa-san selflessly volunteered to do. The group chat was now called Pretty setter and the rest. I wonder how long the name will last.

The doorbell rang and I jumped up and made my way down to open the door.

Oikawa Pov

'Hey, welcome back.' She said with a smile.

'Hey,' I returned. 'thanks for having me again.'

'Of course, how could I rob you of the opportunity to see my gorgeous face.'

She winked and then bent down to grab a pair of slippers, which were lined up meticulously along the side of the left wall.

I stepped into them and we made our way up to her room.

Suzumi-chan glanced at my bag and then looked at me curiously.

'What's with the schoolbag?'

'Oh, Iwa-chan lives close to me, so there's always a chance I could run into him. It'd be suspicious if I went to your house without schoolsupplies.' I said and placed my bag on the ground.

'Good thinking.'

'Yeah, I'm smart like that.'

She rolled her eyes and sat down at the table, which was already supplied with snacks and drinks. I followed her example and sat down opposite to her, on the side of her bed.

'I only saw one pair of shoes at the front door, are your parents out?'

'Yes, they always go on dates on Saturday. They skipped the date last week, since we were settling into the house, so they're gone for the rest of the afternoon to make up for it.'

'And they trusted me enough to leave me alone with their only daughter? I feel touched.'

She hummed in agreement. 'Don't feel too touched, mom had to drag dad out of the house.'

'Changing the subject: can you grab our deathnote? It's under the bed.'

I reached under the bed and pulled out the navy notebook. In the time it had taken for me to do that, Suzumi-chan had snagged a pen off the desk. I opened the notebook and flipped to the right page.

'Alright, let's get started shall we?'

We both sighed and rested our chin on the palm of our hand. We had been coming up with schemes for an hour now and we were both running out of ideas.

I looked around the room for inspiration and my eyes landed on the tv screen above Suzumi-chan's desk. How did she get her hands on that? It must have been so expensive. We weren't getting anything done anyway, so I decided to ask.

'I was wondering,' I began and Suzumi-chan's eyes shot up to meet mine. 'what's up with the expensive-looking tv screen on the wall? Did you sell your soul to the devil or something?'

She laughed heartily and shook her head.

'No, good friends of my parents were replacing their tv, so they sold it to them for a good deal. I got it for my birthday last year.'

I whistled lowly, that was still one hell of a birthday present.

'Wanna put it to good use and watch a movie or something?' She asked excitedly.

'What happened to strategizing?

The excitement drained form her face and she groaned, resting her head on the table. 'I don't wanna anymore.' She whined. 'I want to do something else.'

'Well then,' I said pensively, 'to keep it educational, do you want to watch a volleyball game with me?'

'A game?'

'Yes, we always have practice matches on Friday, remember? I have a practice match of the team we'll be facing next week on CD. It's in my bag.' I pointed to my bag, which stood by the set of drawers next to her desk.

I felt the need to elaborate. 'I watch these to get to know the opponents playing style in advance, so I can come up with counter measures.'

'So dedicated.' She said teasingly, 'Sounds fun, let's do it!'

She reached over, grabbed my bag and handed it to me. After fishing around for a second, I pulled out the CD and slid it her way over the table. The blonde carefully plucked it off the wooden surface, lifted herself off the floor and went to stand before her desk.

'This is gonna take a minute, make yourself comfortable.'

While she said it, she booted up her laptop and started fiddling with some cables.

I used the time to refill our glasses and open up a pack of Oreos. After that I rearranged the pillows so that they were all in front of the bed, ensuring a comfortable place to sit.

'Do you mind if I take notes?' I asked.

'Not at all, go for it.' She replied absentmindedly, hooking up two different cables to her laptop.

I reached into my bag once more and pulled out a pen and my notebook dedicated to volleyball strategies.

'Alright, I got it.' The blonde said.

Sure enough, the tv screen lit up and I was greeted with the familiar sight of the volleyball court. Suzumi-chan pressed play and went to sit beside me.

'I only recently learned the basics of the game, so can I ask you for explanations every once in a while?'

'Yeah, no problem.' I said, surprised she even bothered to learn anything about the sport in the first place.

My surprise must have shown on my face because she grinned at me and gently slapped my arm.

'What kind of best friend would I be if I didn't even learn the rules to your favorite sport?'

I smiled back at her. 'Thanks.'

'Oh by the way, we will be playing against the team in green, so if you see anything interesting, let me know.'

'Gotcha.'

After that we both quieted down and focused on the game.

'No! I call shenanigans on that!'

We were about thirty minutes into the game, nearing the end of the first set. The libero, number 6 in this case, had just set the ball instead of the setter.

I chuckled and looked at her from the corner of my eye, the look of confusion on her face was adorable.

'It's a special rule.' I explained, 'The setter, number 3, received the ball remember? A setter is not allowed to set the ball if he's touched it before, so some liberos learn to set as well. They're only allowed to do so if they jump before that white line that's halfway across their side of the court though.' I pointed to the line in question. 'Watari can do it too.'

'That's really cool!' She said, shoving and Oreo into her mouth. 'I'll ask Watari-san to show me someday.'

After about another hour of watching, halfway through the third set, Suzumi-chan spoke up again.

'Say, is that a rule too?'

'Hm?'

Suzumi-chan stood up, padded over to the laptop and paused the game.

'This is going to take a second to explain, so bear with me.'

I nodded, curious to hear what she had to say. She pointed to the setter and the ace, who had just completed an impressive spike.

'See, I've noticed that every time number 3 sets to the ace, the setter's always on the aces' right hand side, facing him. I was wondering if that is a specific rule those two have to follow. I've never seen you and Iwaizumi-san do it though.'

'Seriously?' I hadn't noticed that, preferring to focus more on their blocking pattern.

'Yeah, I started noticing it around the time they scored their seventeenth point in the second set.'

'Well spotted!' I exclaimed, sitting more upright. 'No, that's not a rule, maybe it's got something to do with familiarity.'

'That's really useful.' I said pensively, 'If that's true, not only it would greatly limit their chances to strike with their most powerful player, it would also allow us to confine our blockers to a specific area whenever the ace jumps to spike!'

'Sorry Suzumi-chan, could we partly re-watch the game? From the second set onward, you said they started doing this at about halfway through the set right? I want to see if there's some kind of trigger to that behavior.'

The blonde sighed deeply and turned around to rewind the game to an hour ago.

'You better think of a way to repay me for this.' She said looking back at me, 'This is an hour of my life I'm giving up for you.'

'Yay, I love you Suzumi-chan!' I said and blew her a kiss.

'Ew, gross. Try something else as an apology.'

I gasped dramatically and clutched my shirt.

'How dare you be disgusted by my love! You know, there are girls that would kill to be in your position.'

'Well, not me.' She replied drily, and walked back towards the bed and flopped down next to me again.

I grabbed the pack of Oreos and selected the most beautiful looking Oreo. I held it up in front of the girl next to me, who leaned forward and bit a piece off of it.

'There, that's a much better form of atonement.'

Hurrah, another chapter done! I am going to be pretty busy next week, so the next upload will be on Sunday, instead of Saturday. Sorry for that, I hope you'll forgive me. See you again next week~