"… Oh, am I late?"

Haiba Alisa whirled around, pleasant surprise on her face. "Ryoka-chan! They're playing the third set against Karasuno right now—it's Karasuno's match point!"

"Eh?" Yamamoto Akane stared at the girl who had appeared, blinking. "Are you here to cheer Nekoma on, too?" She looked a little odd, in her opinion. Sure, it was January, but it wasn't that cold, was it? Especially inside the arena.

But whoever 'Ryoka-chan' was, she wore a large jacket, a surgical mask, and a baseball cap that engulfed all of her hair.

Maybe she's sick, Akane thought, nodding slightly at her own logic. "Hi," she decided to greet the stranger. "I'm Yamamoto Akane, and my brother is playing down there for Nekoma."

"Hn…" Ryoka's voice was muffled. "This is volleyball, right? I remember I played in middle school… Which uniform is Nekoma again?"

As Alisa pointed out their team, Akane kept trying to sneak glances at Ryoka's strange appearance. Was she, perhaps, a celebrity undercover? Alisa seemed like the kind to be acquainted with all sorts of people, even socialites.

Then—

On the court, the ball, slick with perspiration, slipped out of Kenma's fingers.

Ah.

Several months ago...

Everything started when Haiba Lev and Haiba Alisa's parents died in an accident. Their house was sold and the dejected siblings—one nineteen and the other one barely sixteen—rented out a place in a homely apartment block in a brand new neighborhood. It was paid for by their uncle, who was rather distant and only supported them out of familial obligation. Alisa could still continue her plans to study in Tokyo University while juggling a part time job and looking after Lev.

Most of their nights consisted of takeaway dinner and the glow of a cheap television set.

"Please no."

"But they're our new neighbors! I mean yours, technically, but same difference."

Oishi Ryoka lived one floor above the Haiba siblings, and most of her space was taken up by potted plants of all sorts. She was just lucky she hadn't been born with any allergies and that there weren't many bees in the city. Udai Tenma lived in a separate apartment block right opposite hers. If she wanted to, she was able to stretch her leg across and climb into his apartment. It worked vice versa.

Right now, the pair of them were standing in front of Number 28, which belonged to Lev and Alisa.

"Hn."

"They've been here for almost a week," Udai went on. "It would only be the neighborly thing to do."

"What's with you and your weird obsession with being friendly?"

Udai merely laughed before rapping his knuckles on the door.

After a few moments, it clicked open, and a very, very tall boy stood in the door frame. He blinked once. Twice. Lev beamed. "This must be our first noise complaint!"

Eh? Ryoka, wearing a surgical mask over her face, coughed into it. "You are completely wrong," she told him bluntly. "Why would you even think that? What's wrong with you?"

"Lyovochka? Who's that at the door~?"

"Some neighbors came to complain."

Ryoka deadpanned at him. "Did you even hear me?"

"Ah, hey!" Udai took over from her, practically shoving her out of the way. "We're not here to complain, actually." He tilted his head slightly at the appearance of the boy's older sister. She was beautiful, certainly, but there was a rather haggard air about her, as if she had been working too hard with little rest. If she had any eye bags, they were not visible—probably hidden under makeup. "My name is Udai Tenma, and this is Oishi Ryoka. We're your new neighbors. Um, we're actually have a barbecue on the rooftop. Do you want to join us? It'll be a good opportunity to get to know one another. Right, Ryoka-san?"

"Hn."

"Don't mind her," Udai quickly talked over her noncommittal grunt with ease, smiling. "She's just bad at communicating."

Lev inched in close, making Udai lean back a little, a bead of sweat forming down his temple. "You're quite the easygoing guy, aren't you?"

Udai rubbed the back of his head, grinning. "Eheh... is that so?"

"A barbecue!" It was as if Ryoka was witnessing a personality change right in front of her when Alisa perked up, clapping her hands together. "We'd love to, right, Lyovochka?"

"What kind of meat do you have?" Lev asked rather nosily on the way up, Alisa locking the door behind her.

"Hn," said Ryoka, keeping her gaze forward.

"Hn meat? Hello? Are you there?"

"I don't think I really like you."

"At least you're not totally ignoring me! I don't really get why some guys are into that."

"Hn."

While Lev bothered Ryoka with incessant chatter, Udai and Alisa were seemingly getting along better.

"Are there going to be other people, or just us?" Alisa asked with a smile.

Udai returned her smile politely. "There are a few others, but I'm sure we'll get along just fine. We do this often to reinforce our neighborly values."

"There you go again with your 'love thy neighbor' talks," Ryoka said from behind them. "There's something wrong with you."

Lev scratched his head. "You think there's something wrong with everyone, don't you? How cynical, Oishi-senpai."

"It's not cynicism—merely truth. Also, please don't stand over me like that."

"I can't help it!"

When they emerged onto the rooftop, the barbecue was just getting started, a tall bearded man standing over the grill and wafting smoke away with one broad hand. Udai called out to him, "Yo, Higuchi-san!"

Higuchi wasn't the only one there. There was a bespectacled woman in her late twenties, a tired-looking teenage boy, and a fat balding man in a singlet and shorts who was the type that had his eyes seemingly perpetually closed. He was probably the oldest one there, around sixty, and doing that elderly people thing where they exponentially expand sideways.

Lev greeted everyone. "Hi! We're your new neighbors—please take care of us!"

Alisa echoed the greeting, giving a small wave. "Hello, everyone~! It's nice to meet you all."

After some polite bowing, everyone got settled down.

Lev immediately zeroed in on the only other person his age—the exhausted teenager. His name was Igarashi Kojiro, and he had white-blond hair that fell over his face a little. "What school do you go to?"

"Tokyo University," he answered, blinking sleepily. "You?"

"Gwah?! You're in university already?! I thought you were my age!"

"Oh my!" Alisa gushed, oblivious to her brother's awe. "I'm starting there this April~!" Though she didn't show it, she was inwardly jittery with excitement. This was much preferred than spending the night watching TV and lazing around in her own depression. She was generally an extroverted person, and being around people recharged her batteries.

"Cool," said the not-teenager. "I'm a second year."

Lev butted in again, unable to believe what he was hearing. "You're older than my sister?! So... you're... Igarashi-senpai?!"

"You said you thought I was your age," said Igarashi, eyes a little wider. "Does that mean you're...?"

"Sixteen."

"Wow. You're a giant. I can't even tell your nationality, actually. But you speak Japanese very well..."

"He was born and raised here," Alisa explained. "We're both half-Russian."

While Alisa and Lev made conversation with Igarashi, Ryoka was taking small sips of her lychee soda, her mask pulled down to expose the bottom half of her face. Higuchi Yozo was in charge of grilling the meat, and the smell of it was making her hungry. Noticing her expression, Nagano Sonoko, the only other woman besides Alisa and Ryoka, grinned. She was holding a bottle of sake in one hand that was already half drained.

"Hungry?" teased Sonoko, pushing her glasses up a little.

"Hn. A little. How's the shoe business going?" Ryoka inquired politely.

"I'm an accountant."

"Ah. I forgot."

"You were half right, technically." Sonoko shrugged, used to her bluntness. "I work as an accountant at a sports shoes company. Right now, we're getting lots of sales, particularly in the volleyball shoes department."

"Sounds fun."

"It puts me in a coma whenever I get back home."

"... Sounds fun."

Sonoko's lips quirked upward. "Comas are fun?"

Ryoka shrugged. "Maybe?"

"Did somebody say coma?" Omori Yasunobu waddled up to them, beaming. "My great-great-grandson is in a coma."

"Oh no," Ryoka offered halfheartedly.

"Really?" Alisa gasped. "Oh, no, that's terrible..."

Sonoko sweatdropped. "How can you say that so happily, old man...?"

"You can relax," Higuchi called from the barbecue, talking mostly to Alisa. "Omori-san is fond of petty jokes like this."

Omori laughed. "Ohoho! What a manly man you are, Higuchi."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

But Omori just laughed his question off. It was then that Alisa noticed that most of the lines on his face were from laughing, not frowning. It made a small smile appear on her lips.

Igarashi passed Alisa some beer. "Here."

"Thank you, Igarashi-senpai!"

The smallest blush appeared on his cheeks as he cracked his own can of beer open. "... You can call me Kojiro-senpai... if you want..."

Alisa giggled. "Kojiro-senpai it is then!"

"Can I have a sip?" Lev grabbed at the can of beer in Alisa's hands.

"Not yet, Lyovochka~!"

"Ah." Udai stood up abruptly. "I just remembered—I have a box of cup noodles in my apartment I got on sale. We can all share them—it'll go well with the barbecue."

"Be careful," Ryoka warned as Udai stretched his legs.

Lev sat up a little. "What's he doing?"

"Show-off," Higuchi scoffed, though it was more good-natured ribbing than intentional malice. "I swear, you look for more and more excuses to go jumping around."

"Oi," Udai turned back to him, "It's fun, okay? Sometimes my legs start to cry. They say to me: 'Udai-kun! Why aren't you stretching us like you used to?'"

Ryoka stared at him. "There's something wrong with you."

Udai flashed a thumbs up before making a running start. Then, much to Alisa's horror and Lev's surprise, he jumped off the roof, landing on his feet with a thud on the building next door. "You can relax!" he shouted from the adjacent rooftop. "Even Ryoka-san can do it."

"Don't make me sound like some pushover. My legs are longer than yours, you know."

Udai tutted. "It's not all about height. I know that better than anyone." With that, he disappeared into the door that led to the interior of his apartment building. A few minutes later, he was back, carrying the box of cup noodles he had promised. "Hup!" He crossed with ease. "There, nothing so scary, right?"

"Uwaah!" Lev was all up in his face in moments. "Are you a basketball player or something?! You jump so high for someone so short!"

"Geh? Is that so..." Udai straightened. "I was a volleyball player in high school."

"Volleyball? Is it fun?"

They all fell quiet then. The only sound was Higuchi sizzling the meat, which was nearly done. Sonoko and Omori stared at Udai, awaiting his response. Udai let out a huff. "Now what's with all the silence? It's not like I have a dark past or anything."

It was Omori's turn to huff. "Are you kidding, kid? You never tell us anything about yourself, so we all assumed."

"Ah. Well, I'm pretty normal."

Ryoka's gaze flicked to him for a brief moment.

"Now!" Udai declared, "Let's get this barbecue started!"

"YEAH!" Lev was the only one who cheered, forgetting that the rest of his companions weren't high schoolers. Or were they? He couldn't really tell with Ryoka, even without her mask, and he wasn't going to make another embarrassing mistake like with Igarashi.

Sonoko cleared her throat. "Um, Udai-san?"

"Yes?"

"We don't have a kettle."

Udai's smile slipped off his face. He stared at the instant noodles despondently. "Oh. Ohhh..."

All of them except Ryoka chorused at once, "Don't mind, don't mind!"

"I'm such a failure!"

"Nooo!"

"You're not a failure," Ryoka opined quietly, her voice drowned out by the multitude of other voices. Omori and Higuchi could be particularly loud. If you're a failure, then I must be something far beyond that.

After all—

I had it all.

After all—

I lost it all.

But I—

—am content with it.

He never answered my question. Haiba Lev's first year in Nekoma was sure to be a good one. He had already made friends with some of his classmates, though he noticed that many of the girls tended to shy away from him. Probably due to his height, but no matter. If he wanted a girlfriend, it'd be someone who wasn't intimidated by the way he towered over them. Is volleyball fun or not?

"Ne, Haiba-kun!" one of the few girls that wasn't scared of him said. "What kind of club are you thinking of joining? With your height, you'd do really well in basketball or volleyball!"

"I'm not really interested in basketball," replied Lev, thinking. "But volleyball... is it fun?"

"Eh?" The girl blinked. "Well, I don't know. I don't play it."

"Huh. Okay then. That was useless."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm gonna go find someone with useful information."

"Hey!"

As luck would have it, it was lunchtime now, so he wandered off absently in a halfhearted search for someone who had the answer to his question. Everywhere he went, he got lots of stares and whispers due to his novelty—it wasn't every day someone walked down the halls with a height of over six feet and obviously foreign features.

"Hey, you!" Lev caught up to someone wearing a sports uniform. "Is volleyball fun?"

"Ehhhh?" A member of the tennis club stared at him in confusion. "How on earth would I know? Can't you read the back of my jersey?"

"Huh? Oh, tennis? Oh, wrong guy then. You can go."

"I don't need your permission, but okay."

The next person he hassled was a girl. "Is volleyball fun?" Lev demanded, bending his neck and looking her straight in the eye.

"Um. I don't do volleyball," she muttered, sweatdropping.

"Huh? Then why are you wearing a sports uniform?"

"Are you joking or something? I just had PE! Not everyone who wears a sports uniform plays volleyball, weirdo!"

"Oohh. Then why didn't you go change?"

"Where do you think I'm heading off to right now?!"

"Right, right." Unfazed, Lev left the fuming girl in search of his next potential informer.

On the third year floor, Yaku Morisuke was sipping from a milk carton when some of his classmates entered the room, discussing something. They stopped by at his table.

"Hey," one of the boys, a plain-looking brown-haired fellow called Etsuji, addressed him. "Yaku-san, there's some guy in your club harassing the first years."

"Huh?" Yaku raised an eyebrow. Who on earth could that be? "Who is it?"

Etsuji shrugged. "Beats me. Some tall guy who looks like he doesn't know how to speak Japanese. I think he has white hair."

"But he actually does," one of Etsuji's friends piped up. "Or else he wouldn't be going around making a nuisance of himself."

"Yeah, anyway. You should probably stop him, Yaku-san, before something bad happens."

A tall guy who looks like a foreigner? Yaku was stumped. Sure, there were plenty of tall guys on Nekoma's volleyball team, but none of them looked particularly foreign. "Sure, I'll check it out." He stood anyway. Even if this harasser wasn't in his club (and he probably wasn't), he was bringing a bad name to Nekoma's volleyball club. He needed to be stopped, effectively immediately. "He's on the first floor, right?" They all nodded. Well then.

Yaku was making his way down the stairs in a semi-hurried pace when he caught wind of some gossip between a couple who were climbing up.

"Did you hear about that first year?"

"Yeah! My friend told me he's flipping skirts up."

"Nah, no way. An upperclassman said that he's going around asking people to fight him."

Who is this guy? Yaku thought dryly as he passed them. Some kind of dangerous Yamamoto mutation? An image of Yamomoto the body of an enlarged cicada invaded his mind, and his lifted his hand to his mouth as he tried to quell a snort.

Whoever he was, though, he moved fast. Yaku had almost searched the entire first floor up and down before he finally encountered the 'tall guy who looks like he doesn't know how to speak Japanese'. And it was in the act, too—he was terrorizing a poor first year girl.

"Oi!" Yaku called sharply, marching up to him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The first year girl gulped, taking the opportunity to run away. But not before wailing, "I don't know anything, I swear! I swear on my grandmother's life!"

Lev stared at Yaku for a solid five seconds before shouting after the first year girl, "Does your grandmother play volleyball?!" He made to go after her, but Yaku grabbed his wrist.

"Are you crazy?" Again, Lev stared at the short guy who was holding his wrist. From an outsider's perspective, they probably looked like parent and child. Or perhaps parent and adopted child would suit them more. "Oi. Look at me. Why aren't you saying anything?"

"Wow," Lev said aloud, totally abrupt in his delivery. "You're really short!"

There was a long pause.

Then—

"Gack!"

Yaku had kneed him in the stomach.

It was lunchtime practice when everybody noticed that Yaku was nowhere to be seen. Kuroo Tetsuro briefly glanced at the doors to the gym, waiting for their libero to show up. But he never did.

"Hey," the bed-head captain said to Kai Nobuyuki, "Aren't we missing a certain somebody?" He raised his arm to somewhere around his torso. "He's like this tall, you know?"

"I'm sure Yaku will show up soon," the vice-captain replied, sweatdropping a little at Kuroo's description.

And he did, with someone else in tow.

The gym doors opened with a slam, and Kenma nearly dropped his PSP in shock.

A fuming Yaku dragged a silver-haired stranger by the ear and practically threw him on the floor. "Apologize!"

"Oya?" Kuroo cocked a brow. "What's this, hm?" At his words, the entire volleyball team started crowding Lev—who was prostrating frantically and looking rather bewildered by the whole experience—like a hoard of cats surrounding injured prey.

"This guy," Yaku's voice was like splintering ice, "has been making us lose face thanks to his idiocy!"

"I said I was sorry!" Lev protested for the first time, lifting his head up from his prostrating.

"Only after I kicked you! And you should be apologizing to everyone here!"

"Yaku-san, you kicked someone?"

"Shut up, Yamamoto! This guy is a felon! Now the entire school thinks all we do here is flip skirts and pick fights!" At the end of his outburst, Yaku was red-faced and panting hard.

Ah. Something else is up. Or he wouldn't be this dramatic, Kuroo deduced. "Hey, why are you so mad? Did he call your short or something? Haha."

Yaku was silent.

Kuroo blinked, a lazy grin slowly crawling onto his features. "I'm right, aren't I?"

"What's this about skirt flipping?" Kenma deadpanned. "Shouldn't we be more concerned about that?"

"I didn't flip any skirts!" Lev cried.

"Okay, okay." Kuroo pinched the bridge of his nose. "Calm down everyone, your captain is here to take charge. First of all, who are you and how did you manage to trigger one of Yaku's buttons so quickly?"

Kenma shot him a glance. "That's hardly taking control of the situation."

"Shh. I got this, Kenma. Also, you can get up. It's weird talking to someone all the way down there." Yaku's jaw clenched ever so slightly. "Calm down, I didn't mean you," Kuroo tacked on at the end, glancing over to Yaku.

Lev brushed off his pants as he stood before straightening. "My name is Haiba Lev, and I live in a cramped apartment with a futon that's too short for me so the top half of my body is always cold. And I eat instant noodles for breakfast every day!"

"He's trying to get us to pity him," Kenma figured out immediately. "He's not very subtle, though."

Kuroo was kind. "Points for trying."

Lev gratefully accepted his praise. "Thank you!"

"Are you both idiots?!" Yaku snapped, temper flaring once more.

As Kuroo guffawed, Kenma's eyes dropping down to his PSP once more, Lev looked around in confusion. Now that he was standing up, the group of boys didn't seem to be as intimidating as before. Most of them looked friendly enough, though there was this one guy with a blond mohawk that was making threatening faces at him. Also, everybody was shorter than him, so that was a plus.

"So, Lev," Kuroo drawled. "What exactly were you doing before Yaku here arrested you for your so-called felony?"

"Nothing! I was just asking around for something I really wanted to know."

"Oya? And what's that?"

Lev grinned. "Whether volleyball is fun or not. But nobody could give me an answer."

"Is that so? Well then..." Kuroo held out a ball to him, smirking. With his height, he would make a good addition to the team. "How about you find out yourself?"

Uwaah! The first years of the club were blown away. He's so cool! Even Yamamoto was impressed, trying to figure out in his head how to incorporate such aura when approaching girls (which he would never put into practice, but dreams didn't hurt anyone, did they?).

Yaku's brow lowered as Lev and Kuroo stared each other off.

"No thanks."

Kuroo almost fell over at Lev's declination. "Wait, what? Are you kidding me? Tell me you're joking, please." Even after all that?! Am I losing my touch or something?

"Nope." Lev blinked at him. "If I wanted to look for it myself, I would have looked it up online. I can't believe you would want to make me study. Sheesh. How boring."

Stu...dy? Kuroo stared at him. Then he shook his head, almost falling over. "Wait a minute! Are you some kind of idiot? Nobody's making you study anything."

"Oh? Then what do you want me to do?"

Yaku finally snapped. "You dumbass! He's inviting you to join the club so you can actually play volleyball!"

"Really?!"

Kenma paused his game, sighing. "I can't believe this."

"Oi, oi, you trying to pick a fight or something?" Yamamoto put his hands up. "You're spitting on the sanctity of the Nekoma volleyball club!"

Lev gasped. "This is the volleyball club?!"

Kuroo gaped at him. "What's wrong with you? Is there something wrong with you? There's gotta be something wrong with you."

"Hey, I got asked that the other day, too."

"Then clearly something's wrong! You obviously have some kind of chemical imbalance in your brain influencing your cognitive functions! Have you been eating enough fish?"

"I eat instant noodles every day."

A vein popped in Kuroo's cheek. "Right! I forgot you're poor!"

"Don't shout it like that," Kenma advised him.

In the end, Lev ended up not joining after all.

"Hey, is there something wrong with me?" Lev asked when he stood before Udai on his rooftop.

Udai considered it. Then he asked in return, "How did you get up here without the key?"

"Oh, it was locked?" Lev looked back at the door. "I just twisted the doorknob really hard. I thought it was just jammed."

"Are you telling me you just destroyed private property?"

"... Maybe?"

"Then yes. There's probably something wrong with you." Udai patted him on the back when he pouted. "But don't worry, it happens to the best of us."

A/N: Welcome to another disaster that I'll probably never finish, especially with all my other projects on the plate. But don't worry, if it burns and crashes then we can all say that we were expecting it.

It's OC-centric and if it goes right, eventual OC/Kuroo, though it may not seem like that. I just had to write this when my love for Haikyuu! was reignited recently. Probably the exam stress, y'know?

Anyway, here's a list of all minor canon characters and OCs that show up:

Udai Tenma - the (SPOILERS) canonical Small Giant; as in he's not an OC; lives in the apartment block next to Oishi's

Oishi Ryoka - the main character who's too Uchiha-like for most people to like her; lives in Lev's apartment block; OC

Haiba Lev - cute half-Russian boy who's a bit slow at first; canon

Haiba Alisa - cute half-Russian boy's hot sister; canon

Igarashi Kojiro - cute blond guy who's actually in uni and seems perpetually sleepy; OC

Higuchi Yozo - manly man who lives in Lev's apartment block; he pulls off that beard pretty nicely; OC

Nagano Sonoko - unmarried woman who works as an accountant for a sports shoe company; seems to have a chip on her shoulder about something but nobody can really tell what; OC

Omori Yasunobu - a balding old guy in his sixties who has a rather warped sense of humor, including joking about his great-great-grandson being in a coma (does he even have a great-great-grandson? probably not, he's way too young); OC