Hello, I'm going to put a small warning here for mentions of stalker, stalking, and harassment behaviour. If you're uncomfortable, I won't pressure you to read and you can skip to the last bit of the chapter.

In the last day of practice before the team had to leave for the second week training camp, Takeda-sensei and Kiyoko re-check the equipment that they needed to bring to the next camp. However, it seems that they were already running out of medical supplies again so Kiyoko asked Yachi whether she could make a short trip to the nearest drugstore if they had some necessities listed.

"It's a short list so hopefully it doesn't take too long. Is it alright for you to go alone?" Kiyoko asked as she handed Yachi the list.

Yachi wore her shoes outside of the gym and nodded. "Yes, senpai. I'll buy the things and come back here as soon as I'm done."

Kiyoko smiles warmly, "Great. I'll see you later, Yachi-chan."

"Hn! I'll get going!" Yachi bids a small wave as she walks out of the area. The nearest drugstore was about ten to fifteen minutes away from school so she calculated that she'll be back to practice again in a short time.

Yachi was able to successfully buy the necessities needed at the drugstore and she head straight back to school. The sun was setting, painting the sky in a vibrant color of beautiful orange. Yachi took the time to look up to the pretty sky as she walks back to school.

"Pretty…" Yachi whispers to herself as she looked up to the sky.

As Yachi was mindlessly spending the time on her own, she didn't notice the strange figure from the corner of the street watching her before following her from a few miles back as she walked her way to school.

After several minutes, Yachi had entered the street where there wasn't a lot of people walking around by this time of hour. Since Karasuno was located in an uphill area, not many people passes by this route except for students and locals.

Still, the feeling of discomfort started to trickle from the back of her mind as she felt like someone was following her from the back. Yachi took a few look to her back to see if someone was walking behind her.

She spotted the same man dressed in dark attire, wearing a blue baseball cap and dark tinted sunglasses, walking a few steps away behind her. She noticed that he had taken the same paths as she did from the street of the drugstore area.

Panic started to fill inside her brain with endless questions and anxiousness. This doesn't feel safe and she can't tell whether this was just her imagination or not. But she asked herself again and again – did this man kept following her from the drugstore area?

Yachi tries to calm herself down despite the thundering heartbeat against her chest. This time, it was the unpleasant kind. The coldness started to sink in her stomach and her feet felt heavier every time she took her steps in her walk.

'You're just overthinking, Hitoka. That man must be heading somewhere else, you can't judge a person by what they look like!' Yachi tries to tell herself countless times but she could not discard the feeling of being watched intently from that man.

So Yachi tries to look at her surrounding and see if there were anyone around and found it that no one was around in the area beside her and the man behind her. Yachi tries to walk hurriedly with a fastened pace as she tries to reach to a busier street so she can get rid of the discomfort feeling and hoped that the man would turn in the opposite direction at the intersection in front of her.

Yachi walked faster, trying to lift her heavy feet and tightened her grip at the bags she carried in her hands. As she was able to enter the busier street where cars were passing by, she hoped that she lost the man behind her.

But when she took a glimpsed back, the man was also walking closer to her and Yachi couldn't help but feel her panic overdrive.

So she did what she can do at this moment.

She ran.

Unfortunately, when she ran forward to the street where she spotted more people walking, the man behind her also took his steps and ran after her. This time only fear filled the dread inside her and Yachi can't think of anything else in a straight manner.

Her brain tells her that she was in danger and Yachi forced her body to run as fast she can. However, the man behind her was already catching up to her and Yachi felt the coldness of fear and horror washed over her when she felt his hand reached to her arm as he pulled her towards him –

Yachi screamed in terror, "Stop! G-Get away!"

The hand that grabbed her arm tightened when she screams –

"Gah!" Suddenly the strange man who just grabbed on to Yachi screamed in pain and fell to the ground when she sees someone punched directly to his face.

"You shithead! You dare take on little girls when the sun is still out!" The guy who had just come and punched the strange man repeatedly kicked him.

Yachi inspected him. He had his undercut with spiky blonde hair and black studs on both of his ears. He was also quite large when Yachi saw his back as he punches the strange man on the ground with his right hand.

Eventually the strange man tries to squirm out the punches and eventually slipped away from the violent guy who just stopped Yachi from being harassed. Yachi watched the whole thing with shock as she held her shaking hands to her chest and watched the spiky blonde haired boy yells more curses at the strange man who was now running away from them.

"If I see you harass little girls again, I'll bring you straight to the police with you half-alive!" He yelled his last threat as the strange man disappears into the distance.

Finally, the boy turned around and faced Yachi. She couldn't help but flinched when her eyes met his. Sharp brown almond eyes and menacing expression, looking at her from top to bottom.

"You okay there? Are you hurt?"

He asks her gently, walking closer to her and checking to see if she was harmed anywhere else.

Yachi manages to shake her head in reply before she felt the fear overflowing from her body and her eyes suddenly watered with tears.

"I – I…" She couldn't say anything properly as she was shaking so much from what happened. It felt really vivid and Yachi has never felt so much fear all at once. Yachi couldn't say any words out of her mouth as she suddenly cries from the shock.

"Hey – hey, it's okay. You're safe. You're safe right now." The guy spoke softer as he leaned down a little to her height, patting her shoulders gently. "He is gone now and he won't bother you again."

Yachi rubs her eyes as she tries to stop her tears from dripping down her face but she was having a difficult time calming down as her soft sobs turned into heaves.

"You – you want to sit down? Let's sit down and calm down together." The guy gently pulled Yachi to the side and let her sit on the side of the street. He also manages to gather the fallen bags that Yachi dropped earlier and set it next to her as he sits down next to her, waiting for to cool down her cries.

Yachi cries as the guy tries to comfort her in a certain distance. He didn't sit too closely next to her but he was close enough to give her some comforting pats on her back.

"There, there." He manages to word out a few times during her cries. "I'm sorry for what happened. I recognized the man from the distance. He used to grab girls at random hours and we had reported him previously to the police several times but it seemed like the man isn't stopping for real after the last warning."

Yachi chokes on her cries as her sobs calms down little by little. She finally looked to the guy who helped her. Despite his menacing expression, he looked at her with a look of concern as he stared at her worriedly.

"S-sorry for - troubling you." She voiced out with shaky tone.

The guy managed to reply back with a small smile. "No worries. It must have been shocking to you. Are you okay now?"

Yachi nodded a few times and took a few deep breaths while wiping her tears. "It was…scary."

The grim look returned to his face again as he frowned, "That bastard. Next time I see him, I'm going to throw him to the police station right away."

Yachi gave out a chocked laugh after his funny expression.

"Hey, you finally laughed. That's nice." He commented with a charming smile before he stood up.

Yachi followed him and bowed towards him in gratitude, "Thank you for helping me. If it weren't for you, I can't imagine what would happen to me."

"No worries. Men like that deserve to be in jail instead of walking around grabbing girls like that. Anyways – want me to walk back to your place? Where are you heading?" He asked.

Yachi didn't want to trouble the guy so she tries to decline his offer. "Oh it's fine! I'm actually heading to my school close by."

The guy looked around the place and hummed, "Well, I don't see the man anywhere but I want to make sure that you'll be okay on your way. Which school are you going to?"

"Karasuno High School…"

"Eh? Ah – you're a high schooler, huh. Hmm, Karasuno's nearby so let me walk you back for a bit. Is that alright with you?"

Yachi still felt a little shaken from the previous incident so perhaps having this kind person walk her back to school wouldn't be much of an issue. Yachi then nodded to his offer.

"Okay. Thank you very much for helping me out." Yachi spoke as the guy took the bags easily from the ground and accompanied her on the way back to Karasuno.

"No worries! Hey – I haven't caught your name yet. My name is Terushima Yuuji." The guy finally introduced himself.

Yachi gave a small smile in return, "Yachi Hitoka. It's nice to meet you, Terushima-san."

After accompanying Yachi to the gates of Karasuno – Terushima bids Yachi farewell and told her to be careful next time. Yachi bowed to him several times, thanking for his help as he helped her from the strange man from earlier.

"I'll see you around, Yachi-san. Take care!" Terushima waves back as he runs down the street to his destination.

Yachi lightly sighs as she sees Terushima disappears in the distance. She took another deep breath as she holds onto the bags and walked back to the gym. Upon reaching the gym, Kiyoko took one glimpse of Yachi's face and instantly asked what happened.

Yachi retells the painful incident of what happened to her earlier with anxiousness and discomfort. She admitted that she had cried and had another person helped her get away from the strange man.

Kiyoko was so saddened by what happened, she took Yachi to her arms and embraced the girl. "I'm so sorry, Yachi-chan. I should have gone with you to the store. Are you okay now?"

Yachi sniffs a little as she buries herself in Kiyoko's embrace. The older girl was soft and comforting, everything that Yachi craves right now after what happened to her.

"Hn. I'm okay now, I was just scared earlier." Yachi replied.

Kiyoko brushed Yachi's golden locks and hugged her tighter. "We should be more careful in the future. I'll have to tell Takeda-sensei and Sawamura about this. Is that alright with you?"

Yachi bit her lip and confessed, "Um…I wouldn't want to make this incident a big issue, Shimizu-senpai. Everyone is focusing on practices, I don't want to hinder them with this – "

"Of course not, Yachi-chan." Kiyoko rubs comfortingly to Yachi's back. Yachi looked up to the older girl as she brushed a hair lock out of Yachi's face. "You're never a bother. Besides, we all must take care of each other all the time. So don't worry about it, okay? We're here for you."

With the softness in Kiyoko's expression, Yachi couldn't help but cry again. She buries her face into Kiyoko's arms as she voiced out how she was so scared from what happened.

Kiyoko hugs her and comforted her. The girls shared their embrace for a long time.

Author's Notes:

Geez, what a chapter. This was really uncomfortable to write.

In this chapter, Yachi finally meets Terushima. I'm not sure about how to write Terushima since his personality is quite difficult to pinpoint from the canon storyline. Since this is fanfic, I'm going to tweak a little bit about him so I apologize beforehand if he seems out of character in this story. Still, I wanted to showcase that despite Terushima being a little jerk - I think he still have compassion in him. (Though I don't like it when he rudely asks for Kiyoko's number in that scene lmao he such an ass) but it's so rare to see Yachi and Terushima in a fanfic so I dedicate this story with them interacting.

Since the prelims coming up, Yachi is going to meet him again so I'm looking forward to write that one in the future chapters hehe.

Thank you for reading this chapter! See you in the next one!